El Jefe: Life is balance
I've posted things here that have weirded me out before, and yet I hesitate to post this...
But in order to establish continuity and balance I thought throw it out there.
Any of you that read my earlier post on January 28th know of my rather unfortunate run-in with a mentally handicapped woman. Well last Sunday I had another such run-in but in a completely different way....
I have trouble talking about this...

So let's set the scene.

Sunday night around 9:00, El Jefe walks into his favorite pool dive, Zogs. As always, Zogs is sparsely populated with just enough people to take all the tables. Typical of them, Jefe's lame-o friends are running late so he sits down at the bar, orders a drink, and asks the bartender who knows him by sight to put him on the pool list. Your author sips his drink, eyes the TV and idly wonders if he puts money in the jukebox now, whether James Brown's "Payback" (his pool theme song) will come on too early to set his groove. He decides to err on the side of caution, and simply switches his attention between watching basketball highlights and watching people in the bar's wall mirror.

It should be mentioned that as usual, there were no women that piqued El Jefe's interest, this after all being a pool dive. El Jefe has female friends that claim to patronize Zogs, but he personally has rarely if ever seen such activity.

Scene set

Half way through my beer, the bartender, a guy whose name I keep meaning to get, informs me that my table waits. I thank him and head over there intending to play a couple warmers of nine ball till the lads show up. When I arrive, I'm met by a group of rather strange, but friendly group of people. It would seem that I have run into some chaperoned group of mentally handicapped people who were just heading out. One of them, a rather large woman by the name of let's say Sally, I honestly don't remember, comes up and introduces herself. We shake and after I'm introduced to some of the rest of the gang, she asks if they can play with us. I say that I'm waiting for some buddies of mine, but sure I'd be willing to play with them until then. This caught me off guard because I was wondering as I sat at the bar if the perpetually drunk guy with a nearly unintelligible slurred voice would yet again horn into my game this evening. I racked the balls up and just as she's lining up the break her chaperone comes over and informs her that it really is time to go. After a little argument, she breaks, rather badly, and toddles off to pay her tab. Never one to waste a break, I continue to sink balls and wonder just what I've stumbled into.

As I play, Sally sidles up and watches me shoot. I start to notice that she's getting a little close to my bubble, but I try to concentrate on the game. After a bit of this, I notice that she keeps trying to hand me a piece of paper which I try to ignore feigning intense concentration on my play. Eventually she just walks up to me and hands me the paper and goes off to join her group. One of the chaperones shoots me a concerned look and they leave in a semi-orderly fashion. I continue to play for a bit with this crumpled piece of paper in my hand until I gather the courage to give it a look. As I had feared it was a cell phone number and a message to call anytime.......

Some of you might laugh at this latest incident, but I'm quite embarrassed and wonder if a gentleman couldn't have somehow avoided such a situation. I for my part sported a blush for the next hour and a propensity to glance over my shoulder watching for what life will next fling at me.

And can I just say that for those who are starting to wonder, that I'm not the sort who goes around assuming everyone is mentally challenged... This woman clearly had cerebral palsy while the woman from January may have simply been possessed by the Devil for all I know.

Yours, life-challenged
el Jefe