subject: A Barbecue Sauce Encounter For The Books [print this page] My friend Tim is, without a doubt, the nicest guy I know. Honest, courteous, kind and helpful, he's a real scout, and I mean that in a good way. Tim is also very shy, in fact, all the kids in high school called him Tim-id. It didn't bother him much, and if we're telling the truth here, he could have been tagged with a much crueler nickname, but he was such a nice, non-violent guy, nobody picked on him. As we got older, Tim developed a quirk or two, like we all do.
Tim was fastidious, and very detail oriented. Everything had to be just so, and if it wasn't, he'd fix it. He could be very annoying sometimes, but I always figured it was his own personal defense against a world he didn't quite fit into. He was never rude, or confrontational, he would just quietly repair any flaws he perceived around him. So, you can only imagine my surprise, when I picked him up for work last Monday, Tim had two black eyes. I assumed he had been mugged. He sure looked like he had, but on the drive to work he told me the whole story.
Barbecue sauce. he said. I was standing in line at the movies last night, and I noticed the lady in front of me had a glob of something on the back of her dress, something she sat in, I guess. Anyway, it was very annoying to see such a lovely lady with such an unattractive blob
of goo on her backside. It was barbecue sauce. The line was long, and as we waited that barbecue sauce on the back of her dress really started to bother me. I tried to ignore it, but it just got to me. I finally couldn't stand it anymore, so I reached out and gently rubbed it off. Would you believe it? That lady turned around and smacked me so hard I saw stars.
That explains one shiner, I replied, How did you get the second?
After she smacked me he continued, I was real embarrassed, and just a little angry, because, after all, I was just trying to help. I tried to explain it to her, but she just wouldn't listen, I figured if she was going to be so rude about me just trying to do her a favor, I might as well undo that favor, so when she turned around, I gently rubbed that barbecue sauce back on. That's when I got number two.
