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2Ks And G-Man
In cyberspace, no one can see you eat rare yellow-fin tuna.
A recent history of making not one iota of effort towards the healthy, fun, rewarding world of social interaction has not prevented me from accepting dinner invitations from complete strangers on the web.
I was a few days ago accosted in cyberspace by two word wielding corporate girls who threatened to stalk me to the end of my days if I did not give in to their demands. Dinner, as a going away (me going away) appreciation gift for this very blog, which they confess to occasionally reading when they damn well should be doing their corporate duties.
It was as if I had been secretly waiting for complete strangers to ask me out to one of New Orleans' premier Uptown eateries, Dick and Jenny's. I did not even think about not accepting.
One of the women brought her husband, and said husband did wear a badge, which caused nary a moment of emotional conflict for me except perhaps that I did at one point suffer badge envy. Because a badge worn down on the belt looks way cool, not to mention that it carries some of the same implications of a holstered firearm, while being so much lighter.
There was some doubt, on both sides, whether a meeting of strangers like this is a good thing. The roommate of the unmarried woman suggested that maybe she was crazy and that this was so unlike her. One of my readers, an actual Admiral, suggested it may be a trap. My nephew's wife expressed some real concern that I was going to be hacked to bits. "Yeah, but they're going to feed me first," I explained. Her return look was to imply that I had no way of knowing that. So I told her of previous experience with strangers as a hitchhiker but that only led to all of us realizing, well, truth told, people can be very strange, even dangerous.
In the end it was easy, and quite enjoyable, and no one was fed into a wood chipper. If there was anything marring the night I would say it was the very lightly-held resentment of one of the K's, who rightfully suggested that she be held in higher esteem than she felt is offered as a figment of Mark's imagination, not that Jim owes anyone an apology, I'm just saying.