And Now For Something Completely Different

As many of you are aware, my first three novels were mysteries and my latest novel was a lifestyle piece about life after fifty. For my next project, I'm tackling something completely different, the humour category with a novel tentatively titled:

Women 101: A Father's Guide to His Son

Here's a sample:

I was in deep shit now. Trevor had just called and said he was on his way over for our first session. It was too late to back out now. But what is a father supposed to do? When your son asks for help, you’re supposed to give it, no matter what. Right?

My name is Dave and I am a forty-six-year-old software engineer living in a typical middle-class home with my wife, Angie. Trevor is our twenty-four-year-old son. He’s smart, athletic, personable, and relatively good looking, but just hopeless with women. There have already been several Facebook postings about some of his blunders with the fairer sex, some of which, unfortunately, have gone viral. His last wingman had finally given up on him and told him he was on his own. Apparently, Trevor was putting their entire squadron of young, single men in danger of crashing and burning.

In desperation, Trevor had turned to his last resort – his father – for help.

I had hoped this day would never come. Trevor had managed to avoid the whole “how to get women” thing for years. Jessica, the girl-next-door, had been Trevor’s best friend since we moved into the neighbourhood when he was six. They’d gone through public school together, were declared the “cutest couple” at their high school prom, and spent four years together at the local university. Trevor was completely shocked when she told him she was moving to Toronto and leaving him behind. She told him she would always cherish their friendship. He’d thought they were more than just friends.

There was a soft knock on the back door and Trevor entered the kitchen. “Mom’s already gone, right?”

I was sworn to secrecy about our father-son lessons. I didn’t want to advertise them either, particularly to my wife. I knew she’d say I was hardly qualified to be giving such lessons.

My wife sings in a local choral group and the calendar on the front of the fridge showed they had rehearsals every Saturday morning for the next eight weeks. Trevor had surmised that I could teach him everything about women in eight two-hour sessions. That alone should give you some idea how clueless he was.

Today was lesson one: Where to Meet Women.

He sat down at the kitchen table and pulled out a small notepad and a Red Bull from his coat pocket. I poured myself a cup of coffee; I preferred to get my caffeine the old-fashioned way.

“Okay Dad, where’s the best place to meet women?”

He looked at me with wide-eyed anticipation. He was so young, so naïve, so stupid. It was like watching Bambi about to wander out of the forest unaware that there were hunters with guns out there. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. The women he’d encounter wouldn’t be carrying guns, at least I hoped not. But don’t kid yourself, they are fully armed and can easily destroy the entire male population. Talk about your weapons of mass destruction.

“The best place to meet women is normally where you spend the majority of your time, like at work or school.”

“I’m done school,” Trevor said. “And I don’t think I’ll meet any prospects at the plant. I think there are only two women there in total.”

That was true. Trevor had graduated from university over a year ago and landed a position as a design engineer at a local auto parts company. He said the two women who worked in the production plant scared him. I ran into them one day when picking him up for a lunch date; they scared me, too. It was probably too late for him to go back to the university looking to meet girls. A guy could get arrested for stalking young co-eds.

Time to look at Plan B.

I told him grocery stores were a good place to meet women and spent the next half-hour explaining how to look helpless when selecting fruits and vegetables. “If you ask dumb questions, women immediately clue in you’re a bachelor who’s not still living at home with his mother. Plus, it appeals to a woman’s basic instinct to nurture and take care of a man. They love that kind of stuff.”

It was only when I was wrapping up my lesson that I realized I was describing a scene from an old episode of Happy Days – the one where Fonzie tries to help Richie meet women. But it was too late to change strategy now. Fortunately, Trevor wouldn’t know how that episode turned out because it aired before he was born.

He said he would give it a try during the week and report back to me at our next lesson.

* * *

Trevor showed up the following Saturday morning carrying several bags of groceries. “I don’t suppose you want some vegetables,” he said.

I was encouraged to see he’d followed through on our first lesson; I was afraid he might chicken out. He proceeded to empty the grocery bags on the kitchen table. There were more vegetables than I’d ever seen in my whole life. I recognized most of them, but a few left me stumped.

“What the hell is this?” I asked, pointing to some green, leafy stuff.

“I forget. It’s either spinach, kale or watercress. I’ve been eating nothing but vegetables all week.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. “I’ve got a severe case of the runs.”

I now realized I hadn’t told him that he wasn’t supposed to buy every vegetable in the place, just browse through the produce section. We sat down at the kitchen table.

“Don’t worry about the groceries. Did it work? Did you meet any women?”

“I tried,” he said. “I went to the local Valu-Shop store on Monday after work and spent about two hours there, just like you told me. Whenever I’d see a cute, single woman, I’d wander over and ask if she knew how to pick out a good melon or how you’re supposed to cook Brussels sprouts.” He threw up his hands in frustration. “You know what, Dad? Most women don’t know. They’re as clueless as I am!”

I have to admit that I was surprised by that as well. I thought most girls were taught this by their mothers, or learned it in Home Economics class. “So you didn’t meet any women at all?”

“I did meet one,” he said. “She didn’t know any more about fruits and vegetables than I did, but we started up a nice conversation. It was going great until Mrs. Jones showed up.”

“Mrs. Jones? You mean the old lady from down the street?”

“Yep. She was in there shopping and overheard us talking about produce. Before I knew it, she was conducting a Vegetables 101 class for both of us. The cute girl managed to make her escape, but I was stuck. That’s where that kale or watercress, or whatever the hell that is, came from.”

I heard a scary, rumbling sound coming from Trevor’s stomach. He took the cap off the Pepto and took a swig.

“But I didn’t give up,” he said. “I figured I should go to a different store the next day – one with less chance of running into Mrs. Jones or anyone else I might know. On Tuesday, I went to the Mega-Shop on the other side of town. It’s huge and as a bonus, it’s got a women’s fitness club up on the second floor. I figured women would shop there either before or after their workouts.”

Brilliant, I thought to myself. It’s times like these that a father feels most proud. My son was a hunter, learning about the habits of his prey before moving in to claim his prize. I leaned forward in my seat in anticipation. Now we were getting to the good stuff. I could picture him sidling up to a svelte, athletic-looking girl. “I bet the women there were really hot.”

“Not really,” he said. “No hotter than anywhere else, anyway. But there were sure a lot of them. Those fitness and yoga classes attract a lot of women. I managed to strike up several conversations during the week and we’d continue chatting while we waited in the checkout line. Things would be going really well, but when I’d ask them whether they wanted to go out for coffee or to a movie sometime, they’d tell me they were busy or already had a boyfriend.”

I knew this issue might arise and had planned to discuss this topic later, but was now considering moving it forward in his lesson plan.

“Did you make any progress with any of them?”

“Not really. I went back there every night this week. I got a few names and telephone numbers, but didn’t get any further than that. I even shopped there twice on Thursday night. Alicia noticed how often I’m there and signed me up for their Points-Plus card.”

“Who’s Alicia?”

“She’s the checkout girl at the 10-items-or-less lane at the Mega-Shop store. She said I should get their loyalty card – said it could save me a few bucks. By the way, I don’t suppose you want to loan me some money until next payday. I’m running a little short.”

I reached into my wallet and slid a couple of twenties across the table.

“These women who gave you their number – did you try calling any of them?” I asked.

“There were only two and I called both of them. I left a voice-mail for the first one, but she hasn’t called me back.”

“And the second one?”

“I must have written down her number wrong, because when I called it, the message said the number was no longer in service.”

Poor kid. He’d fallen for the old bogus-telephone-number trick. It was definitely time for lesson two: Women Lie.