Sunday, June 01, 2008

Judgmental

I have a judgmental streak going way back. I see somebody, blam! instant opinion, based on what the Germans call Augenblick,( literally, "eye blink.")

This weekend, we took the camper and went to the coast. Dianne was exhausted from a long and difficult week at work, and even though it was going to be cloudy and cool, we have a pretty full schedule at home the next few weeks, so we decided to go for it.

So we're set up, the county park is half-empty, quiet, and a camper pulls in nearby. Guy, mid-thirties, maybe; two little girls, about nine and six. Another car pulls in behind them, and I figure it's the wife. She gets out, and I revise my opinion slightly -- it's the trophy wife.

She had long, bottle-blond hair, piled high; wore an expensive, designer sweatsuit, cut to show the navel; expensive sunglasses, not the least bit necessary. Her face was an unnatural bronze color that indicated heavy makeup or a fake tan, and had no wrinkles, so maybe Botox. I guessed her to be mid-thirties, trying to look mid-twenties. Fit, busty, trim.

After watching them set-up their camp -- a canopy over the picnic table, chairs next to the fire pit, the usual, I revised my appraisal yet again: Not a trophy wife, but a new girlfriend.

Married folks, or long-time couples, have a kind of energy about them and I didn't detect it. She was not the mother of the little girls, and the three of them took turns trying to get daddy's attention. The blond help set stuff up, but she had that helpless, clumsy look that indicated she hadn't done this particular chore before.

She could have been a fine young woman just not used to outdoorsy stuff, but my gut reaction was that she was -- not to put too fine a point on it -- a bimbo.

Well, well, Mr. Judgmental sneers down his nose again ...

If I were being fair, I'd have dropped round, said hello, and engaged them in conversation to see how accurate my assessment was. She could have been Mensa member with a Ph.D. in quantum mechanics, though a couple hours of applying makeup every morning would cut into her research time.

I did walk by with the dogs, and discovered that none of them were dog people. Generally, when I'm out with Jude and Layla, who are passing cute, dog people will come out of their RVs or trailers to say hello. Especially the guilty ones who left their dogs at home ...

Everybody has to be somewhere, and even airheads need love, so I don't begrudge the woman her right to share the communal air, but she was so dead-0n a type that it tickled me.

7 comments:

Steve Perry said...

And yeah, I know this posting violates at least two, and maybe all three of the precepts of Right Speech -- Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it Kind?

Foolish consistency, hobgoblins, etc.

Bobbe Edmonds said...

"I have a judgmental steak going way back."

So, lemme get this straight: You own a prejudicial top sirloin in a time machine? A cynical quarterback covered in A-1 sauce? Doctor Who on Iron Chef? What the hell is this, the H.G. Wells grill and Klan rally?

...Mmmmmuwahahahahaaha!

Steve Perry said...

Net-nanny for a typo, eh?

You have no one to blame but yourself for what happens next.

Dan Gambiera said...

Perry judgmental?

Say it ain't so, Joe!

Daniel Keys Moran said...

I was at my two younger sons Spring Performance at school -- they're in kindergarden and 3rd grade. Predictably, kindergarden and 3rd grade went last, so I sat in the sun for over an hour waiting for their ten minutes of singing. ("Deep in the Heart of Texas," sheesh. My sons know "I Love L.A," I don't know why the rest of those kids couldn't learn it ...)

So I sat and watched the moms for an hour -- it was moms over dads, about 3:1. My kids go to a good school in a very good neighborhood, and the talent floating around that school on any given morning can be striking.

About a dozen women, uniformly present with their husbands, were plainly status wives/girlfriends. They ranged from ten to thirty years younger than the men they were with, they were dressed like they were going to dinner at Spago's, and at least two of them never got off their cell phones the entire time, not even when their husbands' kids were singing.

One of them was wearing a pair of basically transparent white slacks and white blouse, with no bra or panties. I didn't look at her (all that much...) I watched the heads of the men swivel to track her as she walked around, like they were compasses and she was the True North ....

Sometimes thing are exactly what they look like.

Bobbe Edmonds said...

Sore loser.

Steve Perry said...

Ah, Kid. "Loser" indicates that the contest is over.

In the words of the overweight Karen Carpenter, "We've only just begun ..."