The Amazing Pencil Sharpener Incident

I should relate the story of the pencil sharpener while I am in the
mood for it. I feel of late that I write down the boring bits about 
the general to and fro of life and excise for reasons of space the
amusing turns it finds the occasional happenstance to take.

The METRO espresso bar is a place to get a pint or two of eye-opening
brew at various user-friendly hours of the day and night. Sometimes
what can bring a youthful, warm-blooded chappie in to make a return
appearance is the striking luck the proprietor has in finding slim,
supple young ladies to staff the joint. One might think of him as a
latter-day Gene Roddenberry, and that walking in here is much like
it would have been to stride into the set of the Enterprise in 1966,
when the crew was in full short-skirted bloom. Nonetheless, these
limber specimens are to a fault brainy, indepdendent, and proud;
they are, in fact, the exact sort ot bristle at the language I've 
just used in describing them -- to the point of feeling slighted
and wronged, and that recriminations must be met and effusive 
apologies squeezed forth; following that, ritual castration and
suicide. Anyway, if one stays on their good side, life can be 
pleasant and the daily doling of hot bean water undertaken with
polite cheer.

I managed to establish a rapport with the most recent (and -- in due 
credit to her large, exquisitely beautiful eyes, notwithstanding
her sleek dancer's body -- the most striking) addition to the 
general staff -- her name is Christy -- by volunteering to fetch
my own refills of water. Being a thoroughly Modern Woman, of the
type to find bottomless amusement in pointing out the thick-
headedness characteristic of the male gender, she found my easy
adaptability to be a definite plus. "See how I've trained him!"
she smirked to pal Alice, a close girlfriend who can often be
found loitering (a bit embarrassedly) behind the counter on slow
evenings, keeping Christy company.

I feel I am betraying their friendly, conditional trust in me,
that I am a better sort of male specimen than others, by writing
in a haughty, sure-to-be-interpreted-as-misogynistic tone. If so,
I effusively apologize, and shall make quick work of my entrails
with the hara kiri blade later on this evening.

Anyway and so forth, sometime of the last month I pushed through
the portal and made a beeline for the counter, as always. I passed
Alice and Christy on my way there. They were huddled over a nob of 
books and that sort of thing, a set of odds and ends that suggested
college homework in its general demeanor. I was in somewhat low
spirits that day, though the circumstances proper escape me. I was
demure; perhaps diffident would be the better word for it. Blanched
of most emotion, I managed polite smiles as I ordered the salvelike
black pint and the twin glass of pure H2O.

As I stepped to the side, allowing elbow room for the next patron
and putting me in position to dollop a skein of milk and cream into
the as yet unsweetened raw brew, Alice pushed her plucky face to 
the fore and made a general public inquiry viz. the availability
of pencil sharpeners. As if to clear up any lingering abstraction
about the topic at hand, she produced a red pencil with a decidedly
blunted nib, aiming it skywards with reminiscence to a church spire, 
conducing her hopes heaven-ways with a knackful fervency not lost
on me -- especially as I was toting the appropriate apparatus in
my shoulder bag at that very moment.

"I have one," I said. There was no ambiguity in my steady voice,
if I recall correctly. As I unheaved the sack from my anatomy, Alice 
began to make polite protests and disclaimers, not wanting me to 
trouble myself. "No trouble," I said assuredly, and in the next 
moment I produced the requested technology, socked it into ready 
position on the burnished countertop and withdrew to catch the 
reaction.

Dear Alice could not have been more nonplussed if I had electrolyzed
her to her component ions. Instead of a feeble schoolboy's toylike
widget, a mere inchlong housing for a thin, dodgy, planing blade, 
I had manifested the full-sized goods: a giant metal tank resembling
a cement mixer, affixed to a standing solid iron base with a manly
turncrank handle connected inside the mechanism to a pair of inter-
locking, grooved, wood-grinding threshers guaranteed to gnash the
dullest of blunt-ended tools to a pristine point. While Alice stood
amazed, I reached over and swung the rotating lever at the base of
the machine, creating a partial vacuum underneath its rubber foot,
thus allowing it for several minutes to adhere with rigid strength
to the countertop's smooth surface.

Christy was by now making outlandish accusations that I had stolen
this absurdly stout implement from some educational building, as
it is of the same kind found in children's schoolrooms. "No, I 
bought it," I protested, and with a gesture gave Alice -- who 
seemed daunted -- leave to give it a crank and show her stubbornly
useless pencil who's boss. She marveled again upon finding the
metallic beast to be fixed in place. I made a fleeting pass at 
explaining levers and vacuums, but it was lost on her.

When Alice had crispened the business end of her stylo to her
satisfaction, I released the lever, snatched up the device, and
tucked it away again. I left it at that, although it remained an
amusing memory well into the late evening. I didn't explain why
I had that with me -- it was for the purpose of doing colored
drawings such as on these pages, and that normally I do not carry
it around with me. 

The incident did lift my sagging spirits that day, and so I am 
glad to now have written about it. It was a perfect moment of 
comedy that came along unannounced, but which played out so 
precisely in its timing and effect (with no premeditated con-
sciousness on my part, or theirs) that I have to wonder at it.
Life isn't all bad, nor completely lacking in small joys and
surprising humor.

Well, that is my report on it for the night. I should thank Alice
for accosting me an hour or so ago and reminding me of the whole
incident. It allowed me also to inquire after her name, which is
why I had it ready to relate in this anecdote.

Work again tomorrow, I sadly acknowledge, but maybe some fun 
will part the gloom again. Adieu.

                                              ---jrw 12:48am
                                                     1-17-00