He looked like the back end of a horse going north...

Heaven must be missing an angel
Pick up lines? I bet I've heard them all. As an ex-stewardess (oh, excuse me, flight attendant), they came at the girls from all types of men who sadly were either extremely nervous around females or were just plain arrogant, narcissistic boneheads with really high hopes and rocks for brains. The list is far too long to list here but I will tell you what my answer was.

To be fair some of the guys who approached me weren't arrogant sleazy type males. There were some who perhaps didn't have the self confidence they would have wished but I believe, deep down, were really good guys who wanted to meet and spend time with someone they were attracted to.

Then we had those guys who, for whatever reason, and no matter how many times and ways we said 'no', it wasn't good enough. I was approached by a young man once who was wearing a yellow see through lace shirt (don't snicker. It was the style in the 70s when disco was king). To add insult to injury, it was unbuttoned almost down to his navel, the collar was flipped up around his neck, bell bottom blue jeans with enough flare to make a skirt, the ugliest faux crocodile shoes I had ever seen, hair moussed to the extreme and way past his shoulders, and last but not least, jewelry. He was wearing four gold necklaces one longer and thicker than the other with the longest sporting some sort of very large and very ugly medallion on the end.

Now picture this ... he began walking towards me with a wannabe John Travolta and Fonzie thrown in for good measure. His eyes were focused on me. Truth to tell, I felt like I was a sitting duck in a carnival. When he reached my side, he didn't put out his hand in greeting as any normal person would. That would have been too mundane for this guy. Instead he grabbed both my hands and put them against his chest (where his heart should have been) eeww, eeww, eeww, leaned thisclose to my face and almost brushed his lips against mine, all the while mouthing that stupid, cheesy line ... "Heaven must be missing an angel." I had to say this for him, he was fast. All this happened in less than 10 seconds, 15 tops. I was used to guys hitting on me and my colleagues but this touchy feely approach was a little foreign.

I don't enjoy hurting peoples feelings. If there is a way to avoid doing it, I will but this guy gave me no choice. He wouldn't take no for an answer. I tried to be nice but he saw a green light. I tried indifference but that only made him try harder. After being badgered for more than 2 1/2 hours, I had had enough, and this is what I did in answer to his cheesy line.

I smiled at him very sweetly and grabbed my purse. I opened my wallet and took out twenty five cents. I asked him to hold out his hand and to close his eyes. I wonder what was going through his little pea size brain but he did as I asked. I opened his hand and put the coin in his palm and gently closed his fingers around it. I told him it was now safe to look and he did. He opened his hand to see the coin and looked at me with a quizzical expression. To me he looked like the back end of a horse going north but to be nice, let's refer to it as quizzical. I waited for him to ask me what having given him the coin meant. It took a while but he did and I told him "That quarter is for you to go and buy yourself a new personality. I thought of giving you a penny but really believe you can use the upgrade. Quite clearly, you were dropped on your head as a child."

I felt guilty that I had hurt another person and wanted to take back the words as soon as I had said them but it was what it was. I couldn't take back the words. All I could do was apologize for being so mean, and I had made up my mind to do it, too but when I went looking for him to say I was sorry there he was, not more than 10 minutes later, using the same exact line and acting the exact same way with another girl. What a maroon! My instincts were right.

Today, I am very happily married to the love of my existence and my best friend. Not once has he ever had to use a line on me.