(Don't forget to go back and read parts one and two!)
So it wasn’t too long before Pamela embraced the “curly girl” philosophy-much to my relief. It taught her to embrace her wavy corkscrewed locks rather than bending them to her will, straightening them with this unbecoming lacquer that created that peculiar Sea Scallop bun she had been favoring. She began to sport this bouncy short” do” with a modern Brunette Shirley Temple feel to it. Her hair was soft ,touchable and infinitely more appealing. (She had even netted a new beau from it!) This hair style change for the better, didn’t happen immediately mind you. I would arrive each morning to see her at the front desk and frown, to let her know that whatever particular look she had chosen that day was a colossal fail. She had bleached her hair at one point and went back to using these terrible hair glazes which just looked flat out awful and gave her a cheap white trash trailer park girl look. She would ( of course) get angry with me and then ..all of our coworkers wound up having a bad day whenever we quarreled. We weren’t exactly…. well behaved when we were upset with one another. Files slammed on desks and bathroom doors slammed shut whenever a disagreement broke out between us. Our most frequent argument was whose sense of fashion was best. This was absurd, because I was the furthest thing from a fashion plate. My typical wardrobe consisted of khakis and sweaters at work and a jeans and T-shirt slob outside of work. The only fashion achievement I made in my tenure as a mortgage broker’s assistant was figuring out that flat front pants were more flattering for me than pleats. I knew I was a mature, professional, 38 year old male but when I was with Pamela –I was JUST another boy crazy 24 year old girl.
Pamela also began wearing large silk flowers on her lapels and blouses and slowly converted her dark slacks and white shirt by adopting more vibrant colors like Red, Orange and Hot Pinks to her wardrobe. She arrived to work every morning asking. “Are you ready for the big flower PA?” Johnny would try to make an obscure reference to Georgia O’Keefe, which was supposed to embarrass her that she was wearing a Vagina on her lapel. I doubt she understood it. Christine –who had an interesting chic, fashion sense also worth remarking on- would eye her with cool speculation and then say softly under her breath. “Well PA – Are you ready for the Big Flower?” Christine never insulted directly, but I could hear the disapproving tone implying that the Big Flower was a Big Mistake. Luckily this comment was only meant for me to hear.
My boss, being the Italian Stallion that he is, was successful in generating loans for Christine and I to grind out. As a result of this, I felt particularly flush with cash and considered redecorating my small moldy in law. I mentioned this to Pamela and Nupura at lunch, as we mulled over the platters of Peruvian Cuisine that the waiter just brought to the table. We had adjusted the plates to reflect our new Low Carb diets to the Chef’s chagrin. This meant I was staring down sadly at a plate of mixed greens and a grilled chicken breast coated with spices and herbs and not the creamy beautiful sea food potato soup with the poached egg on top I normally ordered. “Oh We’ll have so much fun!!! “ Pamela squealed. I had to admit she looked adorable in her bouncy little bob and kewpie doll bow lips as she clapped with excitement.
“We?” I asked her as I arched my left brow at her.
“YES WE! Nupie can help too.” Nupura looked alarmed as she sipped her tea.” I can ask my friend Eli too. You’ll love him PA !! Let’s go look at some new furniture at the Galleria after work!”
I rolled my eyes at her. “We can look at furniture after work together as long as you drive me to JC Penney’s and Sears instead of the Galleria. I have no intention on spending five grand on a couch.”
Her brows knitted in irritation and then she let out a dramatic sigh. “Oh all right” She brightened “Ready to go furniture shopping Nupie?!. Nupura nodded and giggled.
After work, Nupura and I bundled into Pammie’s SUV and headed to San Bruno which housed a JC Penny and a Sears. I love the smell of department stores. It’s similar to the scent of new car but it smells more like perfumed cardboard. I couldn’t believe that I was nearly 40 and only now just buying some real furniture for myself. It seemed as if this particular JC Penney’s hired only East Indian employees, because I didn’t see any other race on the sales staff. I found a couch and club chair combo that was very reasonably priced. Pamela was annoyed that I didn’t care for the faux leather furniture. I let her know that it was cold where I lived and I wanted furniture I could snuggle in. The type of fabric I showed her was a mottled slate stone color of that brushed microfiber. She pushed her lips in to a moue and circled the couch stroking it with a look of concentration. “It should look good against the pearl grey carpet” I agreed with her. It was a darker grey and wouldn’t clash with the carpet. Nupura deemed it appropriately “squishy cushy comfy”. We found the salesman( Mr. Mirchandani) and made arrangements to have it delivered to San Francisco. Nupura’s and my eyes went round when she told Mr. Mirchandani that she was Mrs. Cooley and she would arrange the shipment. It was a mystery to me how she was going to get the day off supervising the delivery of MY couch but whatever. I grabbed the hand that was supposed to be wearing a wedding band and hid it behind my jean jacket. What was she thinking? Telling this man we were married? You would have to be missing a head to not be able to tell I was as queer as a four dollar bill. When we were through with Mr. Mirchandani, I asked her why she said she was my husband. She told me we would get better service. I was too dense to gather her rationale.
The couch and chair were the first of the many transformations in my home. Pammie planned on making a day of it with her OTHER Best Gay- Eli, while they arranged, painted furniture and hung photos. Apparently Eli was very handy around the house. There was no asking me if this was acceptable or not. It was simply a statement of how this was all going to go the next weekend. I warned her that “Best Gays” could clash sometimes and that the people who issued Gay cards were strict that we could only have one Hag per Gay. She was too focused on “designing” that she didn’t hear me.
The couch and club chair arrived the very next day! Luckily my landlord was there to supervise the delivery. Neither Pammie nor I were required to be there. The delivery guys had to pop out the sliding glass door to fit in the enormous couch. The heavy drapery was drawn wide open and it was an unusually sunny day so the light shone brightly on my great big couch and club chair. My great big BEIGE couch and club chair that is…Wait. What? Beige?! That is NOT what I ordered!!! I ordered stone putty gray! This is Beige and it looked …peculiar with the carpet. I didn’t know the rudiments of interior design, but I could see with my own two eyes that a Beige couch looked very odd with a Pearl Grey carpeting. Pammie’s whole concept –as she explained it to me, were to do muted big pieces with intense red and gold accents. I like Red and I liked Gold, in fact every Christmas I decorated my tree in Red and Gold. Red and Gold are about as far away as you can get from Beige and Gray. I called “Mrs Cooley” immediately and wailed. “ It’s Beige !!!” She gasped “No! – I’ll be right over.”
When she arrived, she stalked around the couch jabbing it angrily. It was quite a different from when we were at the store. “This is NOT the color, we selected! “ She roared. “Mrs. Cooley” got on the phone to call Mr. Mirchandani. She screamed at Mr. Mirchandani for a solid 15 minutes. If that doesn’t sound like much to you I suggest you try screaming for 15 minutes and see how long you last. She wailed how she we had an important dinner party on Saturday Night and my boss was coming and we NEED the FURNITURE WE ORDERED !!!!! Her tale spinning was so grand that I almost got swept up into it. She made us sound like we had a very grand home with 5 bedrooms and 2 baths and Doric Columns out front for cryin out loud. I looked at her incredulously but she seemed to have gotten lost in her own tale. I wanted to squeeze her plump arm and say Really Pammie? All this for $1000 dollars worth of JC Penny furniture? Really? Then the Cherry on top of the Sundae as she uttered into the receiver. “ Oh Now Look what you’ve done! You’ve made me wake the baby!! I just stared at her gape mouthed in shock as she gesticulated wildly for me to cry like a baby. I narrowed my eyes at her and shook my head.” No Way”, I mouthed back. Mr. Mirchandani determined not to lose a sale to someone with a 5 bedroom home begged her to come back to the show room so he could assure her that we got the couch we had ordered. We did just that.
Normally Pammie drove like a little old woman but she was near to breaking the speed limit many times on this short drive. She marched into the store with authority while I decided to play the pussy whipped. beleaguered husband. Don’t judge me. It seemed like the safest way to go. I trailed meekly behind her inhaling the lovely scent of JC Pennys. Mr. M showed us the couch we ordered. It was the stone gray putty we had first selected. She assured him with a barely controlled fury through clenched teeth that it was NOT the couch that arrived. Mr. M suggested that get a swatch of the fabric from the couch we had first selected so he could prove it. She carefully held the swatch up to the couch in the show room shooting the poor salesman baleful looks in between seeing that it matched the couch no matter how you held it. It matched. I shrugged helplessly. He said he’d be right back as he went to check on another sale that my dear wifey poo had interrupted. She gripped the swatch card and followed Mr. M with her eyes. Without looking down at the swatch card she ripped the swatch color choice in question- right off the card! I hissed at her. “What the hell are you doing??? She was hustling out of the store as fast as she could into the parking lot to her SUV. It was all I could do to keep up with her.
As we left the foggy environs of San Bruno to San Fran, I noticed that it was rare that San Francisco had sun and San Bruno didn’t. Pam gripped the wheel in grim determination to prove Mr. Mirchandani wrong as she muttered softly to herself how to get him fired. “ Oh don’t do that ! “ I said. She snapped out of it as if she had thought she was alone and just realized she wasn’t. Then she went back to muttering softly but it was unintelligible. I glanced down at the swatch and noticed something strange was happening. As we drove through darker areas, the swatch looked like the darker gray we had seen in the store but when the sunlight hit the fabric it was …yep Beige – a light tan almost. I didn’t dare tell her. “ Uh …Pammie…you might want to take a look at this.” He eyebrows shot up to the top of her curly hairline as she witnessed the swatch going from beige…to gray and back to beige depending on whether we hit the sunlight or shade. She swung into the driveway of the house I lived in and catapulted out of the seat trotting up to my door as I chased after her to unlock and let her in. The couch was beige. The swatch was beige. Pamela became off white as she sank on my bed staring at the couch. An odd tick was developing in her face and she twitched a bit. I couldn’t hear too much but I did manage to hear her whispering to herself softly. “ I can’t be wrong –I’m never wrong” I know she said this because she repeated it four times. As she stared and twitched I went to pour her a glass of wine. We left Mr. Mirchandani alone and I popped the swatch in the mail to JC Penny’s the next morning. Pammie barely recovered from that experience.
So it wasn’t too long before Pamela embraced the “curly girl” philosophy-much to my relief. It taught her to embrace her wavy corkscrewed locks rather than bending them to her will, straightening them with this unbecoming lacquer that created that peculiar Sea Scallop bun she had been favoring. She began to sport this bouncy short” do” with a modern Brunette Shirley Temple feel to it. Her hair was soft ,touchable and infinitely more appealing. (She had even netted a new beau from it!) This hair style change for the better, didn’t happen immediately mind you. I would arrive each morning to see her at the front desk and frown, to let her know that whatever particular look she had chosen that day was a colossal fail. She had bleached her hair at one point and went back to using these terrible hair glazes which just looked flat out awful and gave her a cheap white trash trailer park girl look. She would ( of course) get angry with me and then ..all of our coworkers wound up having a bad day whenever we quarreled. We weren’t exactly…. well behaved when we were upset with one another. Files slammed on desks and bathroom doors slammed shut whenever a disagreement broke out between us. Our most frequent argument was whose sense of fashion was best. This was absurd, because I was the furthest thing from a fashion plate. My typical wardrobe consisted of khakis and sweaters at work and a jeans and T-shirt slob outside of work. The only fashion achievement I made in my tenure as a mortgage broker’s assistant was figuring out that flat front pants were more flattering for me than pleats. I knew I was a mature, professional, 38 year old male but when I was with Pamela –I was JUST another boy crazy 24 year old girl.
Pamela also began wearing large silk flowers on her lapels and blouses and slowly converted her dark slacks and white shirt by adopting more vibrant colors like Red, Orange and Hot Pinks to her wardrobe. She arrived to work every morning asking. “Are you ready for the big flower PA?” Johnny would try to make an obscure reference to Georgia O’Keefe, which was supposed to embarrass her that she was wearing a Vagina on her lapel. I doubt she understood it. Christine –who had an interesting chic, fashion sense also worth remarking on- would eye her with cool speculation and then say softly under her breath. “Well PA – Are you ready for the Big Flower?” Christine never insulted directly, but I could hear the disapproving tone implying that the Big Flower was a Big Mistake. Luckily this comment was only meant for me to hear.
My boss, being the Italian Stallion that he is, was successful in generating loans for Christine and I to grind out. As a result of this, I felt particularly flush with cash and considered redecorating my small moldy in law. I mentioned this to Pamela and Nupura at lunch, as we mulled over the platters of Peruvian Cuisine that the waiter just brought to the table. We had adjusted the plates to reflect our new Low Carb diets to the Chef’s chagrin. This meant I was staring down sadly at a plate of mixed greens and a grilled chicken breast coated with spices and herbs and not the creamy beautiful sea food potato soup with the poached egg on top I normally ordered. “Oh We’ll have so much fun!!! “ Pamela squealed. I had to admit she looked adorable in her bouncy little bob and kewpie doll bow lips as she clapped with excitement.
“We?” I asked her as I arched my left brow at her.
“YES WE! Nupie can help too.” Nupura looked alarmed as she sipped her tea.” I can ask my friend Eli too. You’ll love him PA !! Let’s go look at some new furniture at the Galleria after work!”
I rolled my eyes at her. “We can look at furniture after work together as long as you drive me to JC Penney’s and Sears instead of the Galleria. I have no intention on spending five grand on a couch.”
Her brows knitted in irritation and then she let out a dramatic sigh. “Oh all right” She brightened “Ready to go furniture shopping Nupie?!. Nupura nodded and giggled.
After work, Nupura and I bundled into Pammie’s SUV and headed to San Bruno which housed a JC Penny and a Sears. I love the smell of department stores. It’s similar to the scent of new car but it smells more like perfumed cardboard. I couldn’t believe that I was nearly 40 and only now just buying some real furniture for myself. It seemed as if this particular JC Penney’s hired only East Indian employees, because I didn’t see any other race on the sales staff. I found a couch and club chair combo that was very reasonably priced. Pamela was annoyed that I didn’t care for the faux leather furniture. I let her know that it was cold where I lived and I wanted furniture I could snuggle in. The type of fabric I showed her was a mottled slate stone color of that brushed microfiber. She pushed her lips in to a moue and circled the couch stroking it with a look of concentration. “It should look good against the pearl grey carpet” I agreed with her. It was a darker grey and wouldn’t clash with the carpet. Nupura deemed it appropriately “squishy cushy comfy”. We found the salesman( Mr. Mirchandani) and made arrangements to have it delivered to San Francisco. Nupura’s and my eyes went round when she told Mr. Mirchandani that she was Mrs. Cooley and she would arrange the shipment. It was a mystery to me how she was going to get the day off supervising the delivery of MY couch but whatever. I grabbed the hand that was supposed to be wearing a wedding band and hid it behind my jean jacket. What was she thinking? Telling this man we were married? You would have to be missing a head to not be able to tell I was as queer as a four dollar bill. When we were through with Mr. Mirchandani, I asked her why she said she was my husband. She told me we would get better service. I was too dense to gather her rationale.
The couch and chair were the first of the many transformations in my home. Pammie planned on making a day of it with her OTHER Best Gay- Eli, while they arranged, painted furniture and hung photos. Apparently Eli was very handy around the house. There was no asking me if this was acceptable or not. It was simply a statement of how this was all going to go the next weekend. I warned her that “Best Gays” could clash sometimes and that the people who issued Gay cards were strict that we could only have one Hag per Gay. She was too focused on “designing” that she didn’t hear me.
The couch and club chair arrived the very next day! Luckily my landlord was there to supervise the delivery. Neither Pammie nor I were required to be there. The delivery guys had to pop out the sliding glass door to fit in the enormous couch. The heavy drapery was drawn wide open and it was an unusually sunny day so the light shone brightly on my great big couch and club chair. My great big BEIGE couch and club chair that is…Wait. What? Beige?! That is NOT what I ordered!!! I ordered stone putty gray! This is Beige and it looked …peculiar with the carpet. I didn’t know the rudiments of interior design, but I could see with my own two eyes that a Beige couch looked very odd with a Pearl Grey carpeting. Pammie’s whole concept –as she explained it to me, were to do muted big pieces with intense red and gold accents. I like Red and I liked Gold, in fact every Christmas I decorated my tree in Red and Gold. Red and Gold are about as far away as you can get from Beige and Gray. I called “Mrs Cooley” immediately and wailed. “ It’s Beige !!!” She gasped “No! – I’ll be right over.”
When she arrived, she stalked around the couch jabbing it angrily. It was quite a different from when we were at the store. “This is NOT the color, we selected! “ She roared. “Mrs. Cooley” got on the phone to call Mr. Mirchandani. She screamed at Mr. Mirchandani for a solid 15 minutes. If that doesn’t sound like much to you I suggest you try screaming for 15 minutes and see how long you last. She wailed how she we had an important dinner party on Saturday Night and my boss was coming and we NEED the FURNITURE WE ORDERED !!!!! Her tale spinning was so grand that I almost got swept up into it. She made us sound like we had a very grand home with 5 bedrooms and 2 baths and Doric Columns out front for cryin out loud. I looked at her incredulously but she seemed to have gotten lost in her own tale. I wanted to squeeze her plump arm and say Really Pammie? All this for $1000 dollars worth of JC Penny furniture? Really? Then the Cherry on top of the Sundae as she uttered into the receiver. “ Oh Now Look what you’ve done! You’ve made me wake the baby!! I just stared at her gape mouthed in shock as she gesticulated wildly for me to cry like a baby. I narrowed my eyes at her and shook my head.” No Way”, I mouthed back. Mr. Mirchandani determined not to lose a sale to someone with a 5 bedroom home begged her to come back to the show room so he could assure her that we got the couch we had ordered. We did just that.
Normally Pammie drove like a little old woman but she was near to breaking the speed limit many times on this short drive. She marched into the store with authority while I decided to play the pussy whipped. beleaguered husband. Don’t judge me. It seemed like the safest way to go. I trailed meekly behind her inhaling the lovely scent of JC Pennys. Mr. M showed us the couch we ordered. It was the stone gray putty we had first selected. She assured him with a barely controlled fury through clenched teeth that it was NOT the couch that arrived. Mr. M suggested that get a swatch of the fabric from the couch we had first selected so he could prove it. She carefully held the swatch up to the couch in the show room shooting the poor salesman baleful looks in between seeing that it matched the couch no matter how you held it. It matched. I shrugged helplessly. He said he’d be right back as he went to check on another sale that my dear wifey poo had interrupted. She gripped the swatch card and followed Mr. M with her eyes. Without looking down at the swatch card she ripped the swatch color choice in question- right off the card! I hissed at her. “What the hell are you doing??? She was hustling out of the store as fast as she could into the parking lot to her SUV. It was all I could do to keep up with her.
As we left the foggy environs of San Bruno to San Fran, I noticed that it was rare that San Francisco had sun and San Bruno didn’t. Pam gripped the wheel in grim determination to prove Mr. Mirchandani wrong as she muttered softly to herself how to get him fired. “ Oh don’t do that ! “ I said. She snapped out of it as if she had thought she was alone and just realized she wasn’t. Then she went back to muttering softly but it was unintelligible. I glanced down at the swatch and noticed something strange was happening. As we drove through darker areas, the swatch looked like the darker gray we had seen in the store but when the sunlight hit the fabric it was …yep Beige – a light tan almost. I didn’t dare tell her. “ Uh …Pammie…you might want to take a look at this.” He eyebrows shot up to the top of her curly hairline as she witnessed the swatch going from beige…to gray and back to beige depending on whether we hit the sunlight or shade. She swung into the driveway of the house I lived in and catapulted out of the seat trotting up to my door as I chased after her to unlock and let her in. The couch was beige. The swatch was beige. Pamela became off white as she sank on my bed staring at the couch. An odd tick was developing in her face and she twitched a bit. I couldn’t hear too much but I did manage to hear her whispering to herself softly. “ I can’t be wrong –I’m never wrong” I know she said this because she repeated it four times. As she stared and twitched I went to pour her a glass of wine. We left Mr. Mirchandani alone and I popped the swatch in the mail to JC Penny’s the next morning. Pammie barely recovered from that experience.
