Ghost Post: Psycho Analyzed

Though I have been remiss in posting to this blog, I have not been so remiss in writing for the blog. Here continues a series I shall call the "far·ra·go Ghost Posts," entries intended for publication during my posting drought that I never got around to posting because sleep. And Facebook. Yeah, okay, mostly Facebook. Some entries will be incomplete, as I obviously didn't finish them at the time of their original composition, and I have since lost the gist of the original direction in which I was headed. And so it goes....

Psycho Analyzed
Date of original composition April 5, 2013

Well, Thursday night was a pretty strange night, as they go for me.

Around 9:30 I picked up a young couple from Harry's, a bar in downtown Arlington Heights. The woman came out of the bar first and waited for her boyfriend to pay their tab. I wanted to comment to her that she resembled Mare Winningham in her prime — as I don't know how Ms. Winningham is looking these days —

(Mare Winningham)


but 1) she's too young to know who the hell Mare Winningham is and 2) she was too drunk to care if I said she looked like Steven Tyler.

(Steven Tyler)

A few minutes later her boyfriend got in the taxi seeming a little more sober, and talkative.

I entered their destination address into my GPS and drove off. On the way the boyfriend asked if I could go a certain way so that he could stop at a liquor store to pick up a six-pack of beer, as he was going to continue to watch the Chicago Blackhawks hockey game at home. I obliged.

The girlfriend made herself comfortable by lying down, to boyfriend's protests. She responded, saying, "I'm not gonna do anything," which made me wonder what she though he thought she might do. There. In the back seat of my dark taxi.

It was only a small chatter of words, but I began to think this girl was maybe a bit on the wild side.

We arrived at the liquor store, and boyfriend said, "I'll pop in and pop right back out."

Girlfriend started scooting across the seat to go out the door with him. "I'll pop right in, too. I have to pee."

"No!" said boyfriend. "You can't go pee." Of course he meant that the store management wouldn't let her use the bathroom, but girlfriend apparently heard a challenge.

As soon as boyfriend closed the door, girlfriend said aloud — but, apparently, not to me — "I can too go to the bathroom. You'll pop right out that door, and I'll pop right out this one..." She opened the left rear door and got out. I had first assumed she was just going to enter the liquor store defiantly and press her luck with the clerk, but no. She stepped to the rear of the taxi, hiking her skirt up along the way. I got a shocked glimpse of her bare ass cheeks around her thongy panties as she disappeared into a squat behind the car!

Yup. The wild side.
Psycho Analyzed

About three hours later I received a dispatch to pick up at a local Red Roof Inn. The order indicated that it was a party of 1, but two people came out and got into my car. Mitch and Charli wanted to go to Dick's River Road House, hoping it would only cost them around 15 dollars. They asked me how much it would cost, but I couldn't give them an accurate answer, as I don't know the address of the place (which would allow me to get the mileage from my GPS, which would, in turn, help me figure out the fare). Then Mitch said he needed to stop at an ATM so he could pay me.

They had gotten into the car in reverse order to what Mitch needed in order to use the drive-up ATM, so he opted to walk to the machine, leaving me and Charli alone for a couple minutes. Did I mention she was drunk? She asked me my name, then asked if I spell it with a 'Y' or an 'I,' and then explained that she spells her name with an 'I,' so that's how I know. She told me she's originally from southern Indiana.

I asked her what brought her up here.

"Well, mainly," she drawled mildly, "all the men there are gray."

I pictured her being chased around by a bunch of 60-ish men and getting frustrated.

"But the men here are black and white, you know what I mean?"

I don't, I nodded.

She pointed past the windshield at her man. "Like him! He's black and white. That's my Mitch. I'm gonna marry him!"

Mitch got back in the car and we headed toward Dick's, about a 15-minute ride. They chatted privately for a few minutes. "The machine wouldn't let me get a thousand," said Mitch. "I punched in a thousand, but it wouldn't do it. So I could only get five-hundred."

Yup. And he wanted the ride to cost only fifteen dollars, like they're strapped for cash.

Then they started talking to me. Individually. Two separate conversations. Simultaneously. Charli was right behind me and closer to my ears, so I mainly heard her side of our conversation.

She hit me with a fusillade of questions: when's my birthday, what's my mother's maiden name (I had to double check to make sure they didn't have my wallet!), did I have any sisters, what are their names... She claimed — and Mitch confirmed — that she could "read" me, so all these questions came from that.

This was actually the second time in a week that I had been "read" by a woman, the first ending in the assessment that since all Virgos are assholes, that I'm an asshole. So I had low expectations for myself this time.

Then Charli made a few fairly accurate assessments — one easily deduced: I'm in a sucky job and it affects my attitude. The second: my attitude defeats my ability to get women. Not entirely accurate... my entire being defeats my ability to get women, but okay, I give her half a point. Then she asked me what it was when I was a kid that I liked to do most; what was my passion. I came up with a couple of snarky answers that I didn't voice, and then she said, "Was it sports?" No. "Was it music — do you play an instrument?" No. "Comedy?" Holy shit!

There was a period of my life that I wanted to be a standup comedian, but I was thwarted by a serious disability: I'm really not very funny. But, WOW. That one hit close!

I didn't acknowledge Charli's accuracy — I couldn't get a word in edgewise —

(incomplete)



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