“Ooh, look Slate,” Mimi Capellini said as we danced across the floor. “We’re coming awfully close to that missal toe.”
Yes, yes, we were. I was at the annual Holiday Social Shindig for the residents of Lake Pesto Village, an upscale retirement community where I resided. I was on my third dance partner of the evening, but this one might actually be going somewhere. Was a romantic interlude in the cards?
My previous partners and I had been getting along quite well also. That is until their jealous, drunken and insecure boyfriends, who had been ignoring them all evening, suddenly got upset when their dates took an interest in yours truly. They came cuttin’ in, pronto, and rather aggressively. The women had to separate us both times. Ah, holiday cheer.
We were under the ‘toe. Mimi brushed her lips against mine.
“So. What do you want for Christmas, Slate?” she purred.
“Well, I…” My reply was cut off by Mimi’s escort, Bunk Bolognese, a former college offensive tackle and, like myself, retired government employee. He cut between Mimi and me, banging his massive man-boobs into my still fairly well toned chest.
“Whaddya’ think you’re doing with my gal, Slick?” he barked into my face, the fumes of Cutty Sark almost flooring me.
“Now, Bunk,” Mimi said. “We were only dancing.”
“You were doing more than that,” Bunk bellowed. He gave me a serious stink-eye. “I’ll teach you a lesson.”
He swung a wild roundhouse right at my noggin. I caught his fist in my left palm. I dug into the nerves in the back of his hand with my right middle finger, bent the hand backward to the breaking point and forced him down on his knees.
“Okay, Bunky,” I said. “time for you to apologize to Mi…”
I was interrupted by two security guards who grabbed my arms and pulled me away.
“Okay, Slate,” Artis Schlepp, head of security for the complex said. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave.”
“He dealt the play,” I said, pulling my arms free. “Toss him out.”
“This is the third altercation you’ve been involved in tonight. Everyone’s complaining.”
“Well, not everyone,” I said winking at Mimi.
“Leave, Slate,” Schlepp said. “Or you will be banned from all future social functions.”
“All right, all right,” I said heading for the door. I looked at the crowd of revelers staring at me.
“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!” I said as I headed out the door. I felt the weight of Bunk’s Gucci wallet and Rolex watch in my coat pocket, along with the wallets of the other two boyfriends.
Well, at least a good night for me.
INSTANT NOODLES 