Hey, bro. Grab your boys. Let me guide you through the lights and the noise. Nightlife. Downtown Victoria. Here’s what’s in store for ya. Lesson number one: treat her like a lady.
Now, unless I’m mistaken and you’re a total fool, you’re probably checking off the basics already: sculpting your hair into something hardened and flammable and squeezing your legs into a pair of jeans so tight you want to sing soprano.
You’re probably thinking you don’t need to be told how to go about your business. You’re probably thinking your Friday night ways are just fine. You got the shoes. You got the belt. You got the shirt. And any hair you don’t need has been shaved or waxed from your chest or your shoulders. Am I right? I’m not here to tell you your Friday night ways are wrong. I’m here to tell you they’re lacking. There’s one special ingredient you’re missing. That’s knowing how to treat her like a lady.
So there I was a couple weeks ago, making my way out of Monty’s a coupla days ’fore Christmas. Nice night. Not too cold. Couple drinks, a dance, I’m good to go. I say ’bye to my boys and my boys say ’bye to me. I’m enjoying the little bit of the West Coast mist as I’m walking down Government Street, thinking, “Dope night. Not perfect, but pretty dope.” I’m walking on home, taking my time.
I just happen upon a fine broad in a bit of a predicament. She’s halfway across the street and the tip of one of her high heels is caught in some cobblestones. Her Blahnik is stuck. And who’s there to save her? Me.
All right, point taken: there’s not a lot of traffic along Government in the middle of the night. In fact, like, I’m pretty sure there were no cars at all. Whatever. I’d had a couple drinks, and I assumed she must have too — it was Friday night! And it was pretty obvious to me that if I didn’t get her and her heel out from between those stones, she’d be pancaked by a tourist or something, even if they were driving at, like, 20 kilometres an hour. So I wrenched and heaved and eventually just threw her over my shoulder, fireman-style, and got her out in time.
I was thinking, “Great; tonight I get more than just a phone number.” No, not that. I thought, “Tonight I get the gift of feeling like a good human being.” Do good for others, and good will come to you. That’s some basic shit right there.
Plot twist: this broad was not happy. All the way to the curb she mumbled into my neck about first, like, what was I doing? And then she muttered about something called machismo and, uh, chauvinism and, you know, like, me just being — man, I think she called me a “sexist?”
And I said thanks. And she asked why I said thanks. And I said, “For calling me sexy.”
She asked me if I still lived in a dorm, and I laughed and said, “Do I look like I like to read textbooks?” And she said how maybe if I at least knew how to read human beings, I would have known she was picking up garbage from the street, not waiting to be rescued from it. She was a street cleaner. A volunteer for, like, the environment. A real stand-up citizen. A good Samaritan. And she said I’d embarrassed her.
Yeah, I can see how getting the full force of my attention might have flustered her. She won’t soon forget that night.
You see what I mean? Treat her like a lady.
