Was just mind-surfing. About things we did as children to earn that ticket to a movie we just HAD to see, because it would be the non-plus ultra experience of our young lives...
And remembered something funny indeed. I ran errands for an eccentric old lady on the block. (Shades of Jane, see the former site for infos on her.)
Mostly it involved going to a diner and getting her lunch, or silly stuff, but it was a movie ticket in return as far a money went. I lurrved me the Arrow Diner, and the slang talk, and the REAL slice of life while I was waiting for my order.
They later moved to the north part of the main drag, and I remember one drunken night with a person who wanted to suddenly wax the linoleum walls in there. It was difficult to dissuade her....
Well... One day, this lady had a special shopping list. I was supposed to go buy her a bra. I was about 12 or 13. Embarrassing? Yes. Impossible? No. It was at a clothing store where my cousin bought me my first jock strap a year or so later.
Which embarrassed her. After all, anyone showing a tiny dick in a bathing suit had to hide it if they weren't European... People had some crazy thinking back then.
But I had to buy the bra, or I wouldn't get the money to see Ben Hur, which had prices raised from 50 to 75 cents! Outrageous. Because the studio was about to go bankrupt...
So I got in, and circled the counter like a vulture, and was looking to see if I could just grab it, pay, and get the fuck out of there, because I was very,. VERY uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, I got confronted by a saleslady with very big hair, which meant... no mercy. I was the shyest kid you could imagine. Said, 'um----errrrr---- I'm supposed to buy a bra.' The woman had given me a note with the size. Does Playtex say anything? They still exist.
Well... the expression on her face was what you would describe as flummoxed, and astounded. Oh yeah, it was a playtex lift-up, if I remember correctly...
And I was the color of a beet, and trying to act as if that was a normal thing to do.... just walk in and buy a bra.
Well, other salespeople were called in, and they decided I didn't want it for ME.... so I got the damned thing and was cursing myself for ever having taken that on.
I delivered, and got my 75 cents,and the Ben Hur viewing was secured. What interested me was Charlton Heston's man pecs... without the bra. Steve Reeves was way cheaper and nicer looking and I loved the beard..
By the way, the incredibly talented Gore Vidal, who wrote the script for Ben Hur said that there was no motivation for the enmity between them, so he told Stephen Boyd that his character was in love with him... and he would be rejected, and for pity's sake, not tell Charleston about it. Very uptight. Reeves was what I would have liked to become when I was twelve. We all hav our dreams.
Some years later, I would be told I had had a terrible mother, and no child of HERS would have their upper ribs showing because they were so undernourished and thin... I was never undernourished. I didn't excercise. I didn't have pecs... just underlying muscle screaming to be developed. And yeah, my rips showed below my neck like something out of a prison camp. And I ate like a stem shovel, go figure. Had good legs. Was it a wonder I wanted to be.. wonderful and exceptional? In a manly way... Life is full of illusions.
I had the problem that everyone reads my face and knows when something is wrong... especially my mother. And she got it out of me in a jiffy, and whoa... I was therefore banned from doing errands for the most lucrative customer I had from doing errands.
So I got a paper route. That wasn't without its' dangers either.
But it explains that to this day.... i have this shyness about buying undergarments.
And remembered something funny indeed. I ran errands for an eccentric old lady on the block. (Shades of Jane, see the former site for infos on her.)
Mostly it involved going to a diner and getting her lunch, or silly stuff, but it was a movie ticket in return as far a money went. I lurrved me the Arrow Diner, and the slang talk, and the REAL slice of life while I was waiting for my order.
They later moved to the north part of the main drag, and I remember one drunken night with a person who wanted to suddenly wax the linoleum walls in there. It was difficult to dissuade her....
Well... One day, this lady had a special shopping list. I was supposed to go buy her a bra. I was about 12 or 13. Embarrassing? Yes. Impossible? No. It was at a clothing store where my cousin bought me my first jock strap a year or so later.
Which embarrassed her. After all, anyone showing a tiny dick in a bathing suit had to hide it if they weren't European... People had some crazy thinking back then.
But I had to buy the bra, or I wouldn't get the money to see Ben Hur, which had prices raised from 50 to 75 cents! Outrageous. Because the studio was about to go bankrupt...
So I got in, and circled the counter like a vulture, and was looking to see if I could just grab it, pay, and get the fuck out of there, because I was very,. VERY uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, I got confronted by a saleslady with very big hair, which meant... no mercy. I was the shyest kid you could imagine. Said, 'um----errrrr---- I'm supposed to buy a bra.' The woman had given me a note with the size. Does Playtex say anything? They still exist.
Well... the expression on her face was what you would describe as flummoxed, and astounded. Oh yeah, it was a playtex lift-up, if I remember correctly...
And I was the color of a beet, and trying to act as if that was a normal thing to do.... just walk in and buy a bra.
Well, other salespeople were called in, and they decided I didn't want it for ME.... so I got the damned thing and was cursing myself for ever having taken that on.
I delivered, and got my 75 cents,and the Ben Hur viewing was secured. What interested me was Charlton Heston's man pecs... without the bra. Steve Reeves was way cheaper and nicer looking and I loved the beard..
By the way, the incredibly talented Gore Vidal, who wrote the script for Ben Hur said that there was no motivation for the enmity between them, so he told Stephen Boyd that his character was in love with him... and he would be rejected, and for pity's sake, not tell Charleston about it. Very uptight. Reeves was what I would have liked to become when I was twelve. We all hav our dreams.
Some years later, I would be told I had had a terrible mother, and no child of HERS would have their upper ribs showing because they were so undernourished and thin... I was never undernourished. I didn't excercise. I didn't have pecs... just underlying muscle screaming to be developed. And yeah, my rips showed below my neck like something out of a prison camp. And I ate like a stem shovel, go figure. Had good legs. Was it a wonder I wanted to be.. wonderful and exceptional? In a manly way... Life is full of illusions.
I had the problem that everyone reads my face and knows when something is wrong... especially my mother. And she got it out of me in a jiffy, and whoa... I was therefore banned from doing errands for the most lucrative customer I had from doing errands.
So I got a paper route. That wasn't without its' dangers either.
But it explains that to this day.... i have this shyness about buying undergarments.
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