Why is it the height of comedy to wave at someone on the street from inside your automobile perch? Passengers, no matter from what type vehicle, erupt into giddy glee as they spot someone they know on the sidewalk. "Huh, hah, ha ha ha, I'm inside this car, you're out there, and we know each other, look at me wave at you, bwaa-hahahahaha!" The pedestrian never knows what to do but clumsily wave back, watching them speed away.

My response is always a sneer with an option of rude hand gesture. Thanks for pointing out that I am in the elements while you travel in comfort. No, that's alright, keep on truckin. I couldn't possibly want a ride since seeing the uncontrollable joy you derive from mocking me fills my soul with amber waves of peace. Mentally trying to ignite the fuel tank.

YEAR TWENTY EIGHT: Spanky was a rolling stoner.

Perplexed myself. Hardly difficult to accomplish. Chiseling out the habitation timeline in a floating mental cavewall. Matching up the Age Of Spanky with the proper geographical location isn't easy to accomplish. I don't know how to stay put.

Somewhere in the twenty seventh year I was forced out of Hell's Kitchen. Candy moved in. Got crowded. Long story of lifelines twisted up like basket weaving.

Sigh. Okay. Spumky and I became homies at Rigatoni Hut. When I first started working there the legend of Spumky was touted by many other noodle slaves there, mostly waitresses. He went back to Omaha the same summer I started working at Rigatoni Hut, and then returned to St. Louis to continue his string instrument training at the conservatory in U. City, CASA, that fall. They renamed it the St. Louis Symphony Community Music School after I left, and couldn't give a shit about St. Louis institution renamings after I left anyway.

Met Spumky on shift. Snippy little rascal. He had diva queen tude. I was hosting that day, and therefore seating diners as they arrived. Thankless job where the customers wanted seats immediately as well as in the perfect spot on the floor, equal distribution of waiter sections be damned. Wanting these pests out of my life as soon as possible, I would often place them at a table that wasn't quite set yet. Spumky confronted me. Complete condescending tone "you know I am only one person, with only two hands, I can't put silverware down any faster", and stormed off like Scarlett O'Hara into the kitchen.

The real reason he was miffed was twofold. First, he hated close proximity of an audience watching his every move as a busboy. Second, it was too much for him to have to converse and fend off questions meant for the wait staff. He was quite the self obsessed precious starlet.

So, in response I armed a cocktail tray. Took it upon myself to throw down napkins and forks as I sat people. Saw him stunned in his tracks. The wheels were visably spinning under his cranium. He didn't know how to handle someone capable of solutions. Couple days later we were drinking buddies.

A year after that Candy shows up. I sized her up immediately. She still doesn't believe to this day that I figured out she was a Ladue debutante before even talking to her. Forced into a blue collar life, swelling the ranks of divorce victims from well off families. Like I've said before, ex-wives get the bozack in legal proceedings in Missouri. Her father quickly became a horrible asshole in her existence somewhere midteen. I believe he loudly called her a "whore slut" in front of clients at his office one impressionable day. Historically her male companion selection process is damaged.

First thing Spumky said to Candy, deadpanned in her face, when they met each other in front of the cash register I was manning at the time, "you're wearing too much makeup", and strolled off down the back hallway. Candy stood there, uneasily laughed, jerked her head and slowly paced towards the dining room. So, they struck up a romance fairly soon.

Can't quite recall if she became part of the posse before or after that, but she was a regular party fixture from there on out. I don't know if she was always comfortable around weirdos like myself, but she hung in there. Think she still has the paper plate we wrote a huge catalogue of naughty alternative Ben and Jerry's flavors, like Mint Clitoris, Dingleberry Crunch and Triple Nipple Swirl. She bought me a traditional celebatory plunger full of numerous liquors to drain on my twenty first birthday. Don't remember much after trickles of burning liquid ran from the corners of my mouth. Drooling over a plate of waffles at IHOP later that night. Remember seeing the destruction after she and Spumky broke his futon frame with boisterous sex. She blushed as I laughed at her.

Spumky, being the relationship genuis that he is, juggled between Candy and Mishko. Mishko, a native of Japan, and fellow conservatory student, was fucking creepy. He brought her to one of my infamous house parties, and she spent the entire time hiding behind an oak in the frontyard. She left messages on his machine..."the world is empty without you, my body suffer, you are man for me". After their second breakup, she climbed the wall of his building, and broke into his apartment. He found her sprawled out on the bathroom shower mat, wrists chewed up from her failed attempt to slice them with a safety razor. So you can see why he kept her around.

Candy had enough, and she called it quits.

I threw a Greek Easter dinner party at my place. The folks and sis went up to Wisconsin to spend the spring holiday week with the extended family. I wanted nothing to do with it and remained behind with work and school as an excuse. Candy was not originally going to come, visiting family of her own. Surprised as she came running towards me on the sidewalk outside Rigatoni Hut the day of the event. Big hug. She drank wine while she watched me make dolmades, mousaka and lamb souvlaki. Spumky was actually there too, helping me out by preparing the filo dough for the baklava. Candy's kid brother was escaping their family as well, watching videos on my couch.

I think this is when she began viewing me as a potential boyfriend. We started dating soon after that. She broke it off with me after one too many uncomfortable sex sessions. Not sure why, but I just felt awkward around her in the sack. She sensibly ended it after we failed at the long distance relationship thing during my first year at NYU.

Spumky visited St. Louis while we were roomies at the Hell's Kitchen abode. Hooked up with Candy again. Actually, not entirely sure when they rehydrated their dried up affair. Months of phone sex. Which annoyed me greatly, since the phone cord only went so far, and Spumky's trying to hushly disguise his dirty talk while I watched Mr. Show With Bob and Dave was impossible to ignore. I think I might even yelled "jee-zus! give it a fucking rest" one time out of frustration. He lured her out to NYC with the promise of being different.

She pulled up in front on Forty Eighth Street, with false assurances of what her new living quarters were going to be like, made obvious by the huge inventory of stuff she carted cross-country in a U-Haul truck. Stinko's was wearing thin anyway, but I quit mostly to cash out my 401K plan to have money to sink into a new lease. The three of us plus their two dysfunctional dogs, Baby and Murphy, lived cramped for a good four or five months. Had to go.

Headed towards Brooklyn. Hood had many names. Lower Slope, Gowanus, or Cobble Hill. Fairly ghetto however you want to shade it. This is when I started the two year stint with the most retarded roomate I have ever had. Wrote about it not too long ago, see "apartment gnome" if you're interested. Will leave Gowanus tales for the next time.

Heh, best part of the whole Hell's Kitchen situation? I was quite angered at the time of being pushed out the door. I knew that Spumky was gonna spew fuckjuice all over the situation and that it would never last between him and Candy. So I was being uprooted because Spumky was a social idiot as far as I was concerned. He apparently accused me of all manner of crimes on the first day she showed up and they had their first private New York dinner at some greasy spoon. Told her I really wasn't a friend. Years later she told me "he blamed you for the apartment never staying clean, but after you left the place just got more grubby". Cracks me up. Well, at least I didn't derive any satisfaction of accurately predicting that he would cheat on her once again, and with another Asian girlie.

I don't know why people don't listen to me. Well, I suppose it might be hard to listen if I actually have mostly internal conversations or give hints with sarcastic humor on such matters. Nah, you monkeys need to adapt to my brainwaves.