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AaronMichaelGordon.com: Voice of Degeneration

On "How Even The Perfect Day Can Be Ruined By Michina Saeta."

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This entry was posted on 6/2/2008 12:04 PM and is filed under Insanity,Humor.

It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon in the District. I had tumbled out of bed around 12:00, still groggy from the effects of the previous night's debauchery. After a quick shower and shave, I slipped into a pair of loose-fitting athletic shorts, paired to my favorite "Homeskooled" T-Shirt, and ventured out into a breezy, sun-drenched urban paradise. When the weather is right, Georgetown's magic is at its most potent, a salve to heal the work week ahead.

I strolled down to Barnes & Noble, and picked up a book and some magazines, before heading to my favorite spot for lazing in the sun. There's a ledge right behind Dean & Deluca, natural stone piled two stories high, that overlooks the canal. Look north, and the pulse of the populace intermingles with the breeze, providing vitality and verve. Look south, and witness the history peeps, in full period garb, mule-pulling a barge full of tourists down the canal, while joggers trot by, oblivious or incredulous.

Anyhoo, I had curled up into my nook in this tableau, where the trees filtered just enough light in and away to polish off a few chapters of my new book. Having spent the last few years devouring the 'Deep' and 'Serious,' I decided that a little levity would be ideal for this idyllic day. So I picked up How I Paid For College, by Marc Acito, a veritable soufflé of a read if there ever was one.

In any case, I had polished off about 70 pages in a couple of hours, broken up by the occasional drowsy gaze towards the casually pretentious crowd gathered at Dean & Deluca's café. And, of course, broken up by deep, lusty drags off my cigarette. During one of these stare-n-smoke breaks, a middle-aged gentleman sidles over my way, his affable nature completed with a knowing, if somewhat shit-eating, grin.

My very own Jiminy Cricket chimes in a muted warning, noting how my role in this afternoon's show appears to be changing from "Bookwormed Slob" to "Blatant Slut." This day just became much, much gayer. I put that damn cricket back in his box, and returned the smile, with perhaps too much warmth, too much heat, too much room for possibility.

I mean, it's the perfect day. Wouldn't sex just be the pun-intended cherry on an already-tasty dessert?

My suitor gets the hint, and approaches directly, seeking to transform our potential into something more kinetic. Or maybe he just wants a blow job. Either way, my mouth is assuredly open with anticipation of what's to come.

Or whom.

The left corner of his mouth slightly twitches; his pale cheeks flush with bashful hue. Dear Jesus, he's actually shy and embarrassed to be doing this, I think. To date, I find it baffling when people are turned on by me. Now, when I was young and thin and porcelain, I could see the attraction. The shellac of personality was, indeed, hot stuff baby (this evenin'.) But since I turned 32, I've been fighting a losing battle of the bulge. My white flag went up a long time ago, a full, unconditional surrender to the ravages of time.

So, when someone views me as an erotic creature at present, my first impulse is to wonder why, exactly. I'm an average-to-stocky Jewish man with an attitude. And yet, he approaches.

I'm pretty certain it's not attitude he's looking for.

His eyes grasp mine, relentless in their gaze, their longing. Pair these to his blushing cheeks, and you have the ingredients for what may be the most perfect face. To be embarrassed by lust and yet entirely unable to contain or control it? Yeah, that's pretty damn hot.

He stammers out a hello, that he's read my book. I basically hear none of this, instead focusing on the throbbing, rhythmic beat of my heart. Well, something's throbbing, anyway.

"Where are you," he asks.

Like a total fucking idiot, I vomit out "Georgetown." He smiles and laughs, clearly relieved that I'm not nearly as smooth and composed as I affect to great effect. And that's when I see it. Or, more precisely...see it waft in the breeze of this perfect day down by the canal in Georgetown.

A long, dark, mucus-encrusted nose hair. "Michina saeta" in Latin. Gross in every language.

A polar wind entirely stifles any warmth, any heat. I desperately run magnets over the memory tape of my mind, hoping to cleanse, to remove, to replay the scene with edits. Jiminy hops out of his box with some Viagra and Boone's Farm. He whispers, "Just close your eyes, focus...and move on."

I close my eyes. I see the long, dark, mucus-encrusted nose hair.

I open my eyes. The long, dark, mucus-encrusted nose hair is right in front of me, practically reaching out like a leper for food, trying to infect my body with its nose hair cooties.

He senses the change in me, how the boil is rapidly descending down to tepid, lukewarm flat soda. I scan his face and body in a desperate bid to turn over my engine again. The slight worry lines on his forehead. The aquamarine veins roping from fore to aft on his arms. How his long eyelashes fleck with sunlit blonde.

And no matter where I look, that mother fucking long, dark, mucus-encrusted nose hair follows. At this point, I've personified "Hairy," and he's lounge-singing "Don't You...Forget About Me."

As if.

It's over. I tell him that it's a pretty good book and I'm enjoying it. He looks at me...wondering what his next move can be. Clearly, he doesn't know that it's the long, dark, mucus-encrusted nose hair swatting his face that's keeping me out of his pants. I see the inner scan: he replays the last few moments in his head. Did I approach too fast? Was my laugh too loud? Too fake?

He gives me one more look, much like a puppy hoping to convince his owners to take him...before the sad resolution. The damn dog knows he's being left behind. This man has the same reaction. He basically shrugs me off, and hopes that I enjoy the book.

He also decides that it's me and not him that's the problem here. He's too frigid. Uptight. Maybe he's an asshole.

I think he settles on Aaron-as-asshole (join the club, dude,) and swiftly turns his head in departure, the long, dark, mucus-encrusted nose hair ricocheting off his cheek, leaving a welt in the tender flesh.

He's gone. I immediately check myself for any remnants of the long, dark, mucus-encrusted nose hair. Was there breakage? Did the mucus flow off and splat on the book cover? Did I get some in my eye?

Suddenly, it's not so ideal out. The breeze scrapes Styrofoam shards out of the overflowing trash bins. The canal smells like mule shit. The humidity has made my armpits into swamps, slick with deodorant, a chemical gruel running down my sides.

I feel bad. There's now a man wandering the streets of DC, on this formerly perfect day, annoyed and blue-balled...all because of me.

And that long, dark, mucus-encrusted nose hair.

To think, if he had only trimmed, if he had had only gone to the Sharper Image and got his very own nose mower, this story, this day, our day, it would have ended quite differently. And while I don't like nose hair of any kind, I've mellowed a bit in my middle age. An occasional tuft...a trim faux pas...that's fine. We're only human, after all.

But this was long.

Dark.

Mucus-encrusted.

It swung pendulously in the breeze.

Which makes you wonder...if his nose hair is so unkempt, imagine the thicket below the belt. It was enough for me to get up, walk home, and perform a thorough maintenance on my nether regions.

And, of course, my nose.





 

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