Cause for Alarm

At some point over the last twenty years, I’ve come to the realization I’m going to die single. Aside from my problems with looks and personality, I have the world’s worst luck. I meet a potential soulmate when I have burger stuck in my teeth. When I really click with another guy, we’re in the waiting room of a VD clinic.

Saturday was the day when I imagined I’d find my man. I’d shave and shower and put on clean clothes, then wander the city with a carefree smile on my face. Just to have some kind of excuse for going out, I’d scour the stores in search of sales, and stock up on whatever was marked down. Going home alone wasn’t quite as painful when I had a bag of bargain Haagen-Dazs in tow.

Last Saturday I found a great value at the very first Rite Aid I went to, which seemed like an omen. After all, when Beano gets marked down to half price it doesn’t exactly sit on the shelves. When I tried to leave, though, the store’s security alarm screeched, jerking me back to cold reality. I braced myself, waiting for security to tackle me, but nobody came. The guard was engrossed in “O” magazine, and the clerk was admiring her fingernails. So I left. If the thought of theft didn’t bother them, it sure as hell didn’t bother me.

Except, of course, it did.

For the next few hours I blasted the alarms at fifty different stores. Bystanders jumped and dogs barked but the store employees, leafing through magazines or chatting among themselves, waved me through with disinterest. I’d just about reached my daily limit of irritation at the Walgreens on Union Square when I ran into Frank, a guy who lived upstairs in my building.

Frank was handsome and well-built, with the carefree insouciance of somebody who either had a trust fund or substantially more downstairs than me. He was the neighborhood fitness nut, and I even went jogging a couple times in hopes of running into him. I saw him, but he didn’t notice me: the charms of tall men dissipate when they’re wearing shorts.

“Hey,” he said. “How are you?” Didn’t know my name. Couldn’t remember where he knew me from. I’d had ex-husbands who’d done worse.

“Great,” I replied. “I’m Roman -- I live downstairs in your building.”

“Oh, yeah. I think I saw you jogging once. Doing some shopping?”

“Yeah, kinda. I got bored, and spending money is an easy cure.”

He chuckled, showing dimples that could hide Jimmy Hoffa. “Tell me about it,” he said, holding up a bag from Jeffrey’s. “Stop me before I spend again.” Our eyes locked, and something in his said I passed inspection. “Hey, since you’re bored and I’m bored, why don’t we get together tonight?”

I figured I must have misunderstood this, because he couldn’t have said what I thought he said. Just to be on the safe side, I repeated what I’d heard. “Get together tonight? You and me?”

“Yeah. Maybe we could rent a couple DVDs and call out for Chinese food.”

My eyes lit up, and a few other parts sprang to life as well. Those words meant “Let’s get naked and screw!” almost as much as “Let’s get naked and screw!” did. “Sounds like a plan,” I declared as my heart square-danced in my chest.

We bought our stuff and started out the door when, of course, the security alarm squealed. I shrugged a carefree shrug but naturally this was the place where Joe Friday worked. Before we could take another step he flung himself in our path like the Hulk in green polyester, smacking a meaty thigh with his Maglite and virtually begging us to fight back.

“Could you empty your bag, sir?” he growled. My eyes furtively darted toward freedom but I knew I’d never make it. If I could outrun animals I wouldn’t have a horrible fear of petting zoos.

I set my bags on the ground and pulled out the last thing I bought. Shaving cream. He buzzed it with his little wand but it didn’t beep, so I pulled out more. A box of condoms, Nair for Men. Nothing. A roll of duct tape and a salami.

Frank watched curiously as more items were added to the pile. Clothespins, a fly swatter, thirty-two ounces of rice pudding. “You sure bought some weird stuff,” he remarked.

“Well, I thought I’d be spending the night alone,” I said, handing the guard a tub of Vaseline and a Baby Ruth. “A guy’s got to keep himself entertained.”

Now, I didn’t think any of these items were particularly strange. I figured anybody looking would guess that I was (a) well-groomed, (b) handy around the house, and (c) fond of snacks. What was odd, though, was how everything was mixed up. After a wrestling magazine came baby oil and a ping-pong paddle. Next was forty feet of rope, a tube of Ben Gay and a foot-long Slim Jim.

By now Frank was tottering on his heels like a seasick Weeble. “I just remembered!” he declared after the jockstrap came out. “My cousin is flying in tonight and I’m supposed to meet her at the airport. We’ll have to get together some other time.”

He darted past the guard then sprinted out the door. Oh, c’mon, I thought, watching his hunky form retreat. Everybody buys weird stuff, but it doesn’t mean they’re doing anything weird.

The guard came at me with the wand again and this time it dawned on me. The Beano. I pulled it out of my pocket, and the wand lit up like a sparkler. I showed the guard the receipt and he nodded, galumphing off to leave me knee-deep in a pile of crap.

I stumbled outside into the harsh sunlight, humiliation burning my eyes. Another day of sexual frustration; one less eligible man in the world. At home I unpacked it all again and tried to make the connections Frank made. I stretched the jockstrap, sniffed the Slim Jim, felt the Ben Gay burn. Maybe I'd already been alone too long, I thought. Because where he saw weirdness, I definitely saw . . . hot.

I closed the curtains and slid out of my pants. If I'm going to do the time, I thought, I'd might as well do the crime.