Please... Just Let Him Have Teeth!!!

Last Thursday, I headed down to Florence for a Conference. I was staying overnight and then heading back after the classes Friday. When I had left my house, I hadn't really known how long the drive was, although people had told me it would be about 2 1/2 hours. It wound up being 4+, but I stopped in Eugene, so maybe it took less actually driving time.

By the time I got there, I was so hungry my stomach sounded like a little tuba orchestra. It was freezing cold and I was wearing short sleeves and Capri's. I checked in, shivered to my room, threw on sweats and trooped to the only restaurant within a 3-mile radius. The hotel restaurant.

The parking lot was packed full of cars and I was hoping that there weren't tons of people dressed to the 9's seated inside as I didn't want to cause too much of a sensation in my utterly beautiful sweat clothes. But to my utter surprise, it was completely empty... save one guy talking on the phone in a southern accent so deep that no only did he sleep with the alligators, he wrestled them and ate them for breakfast.

Now, we all get accustomed to stereotypes and I'm sad to say that my experiences with the deep southern accented people usually means that I'm about to meet someone that has no teeth, or maybe has one or two that just haven't yet fallen off from the rot. This was in my mind as the waitress approached to seat me at a table. In my head I'm pretty much screaming... "Oh PLEASE!!! Don't sit me next to the toothless person. Please! Please! PLEASE!"

But I guess she didn't want to walk much because of course she sat me down at the table next to him. In front of him, really, and I chose the chair that faced away from the toothless person. Better to see the ocean out the window, you know? My quiet evening of dining by myself in the restaurant suddenly changed to "Can I take this back to my room?"

The waitress said that I could, I ordered, and then busied myself writing scrapbook pages I wanted to do into a little notebook, grateful that Mr. No Teeth was talking on the phone to his parents, as I overheard conversations.

Then he hung up.

And it got very quiet.

My shoulders tensed.

And I just knew...

"You're being awfully quiet over there..."

I inwardly groaned, cursing my ability to hear, my ingrained need to be polite, and the fact that I was going to have to turn around and enter into a conversation with this person. Damn it!

In my head I'm chanting, "Oh please God, just let him have teeth. Please? Please? Oh just let him have teeth."

I slowly turned around, muttering about how long the drive had been and how tired I was... and then I saw him.

He was SO CUTE! Oh man...

I think my mouth must have curved into a helpless "Well, hey there big boy" smile as I looked at him, laughing inside at how worried I had been. He had blond shaggy hair, was probably in his late 30's, very tan, and very in shape. His arms looked like sculpted muscles that were used to doing hard labor and relished it. (Those alligators, probably.)

We chatted for a few minutes. Where he was from, what he was doing here (government contractor delivering pipes for a project), the fact that where he was from the mosquitoes used the bug zappers as tanning lights, how tan he was, what he did for a living (contractor for the government), and me answering questions about what I did and commenting on much of what he said.

All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend 10 minutes. The thing that really makes me smile though is this question...

In that conversation, I also found out, from information volunteered freely, what room he was in, what he was currently doing--laundry, so he had no other clothes (what a shame, lol)-- that he was trustworthy (because the guy that owned the airport gave him the security codes and offered to loan him his car, and that the big, red trailer parked out front was his-- because you know, size really does matter.

So, was it an attempt at a pick-up or was he really just clueless about what he was unintentionally saying? Are guys always on the make?!

Alas, I suppose we will never know because my food arrived and I bid him safe journey home.

The good-looking, southern talking man with perfect teeth.