Page 35 of Flirtasaurus
“Yes. Why do you seem excited by this?”
“Because I love tasks like that! Repetitive motions, getting into a rhythm with a partner, feeling that mutual pleasure and relief at the moment of completion?”
Okay. Am I a pervert? Or is he actually just talking about the act of stuffing envelopes?
“Shall we then?” He gestures to one of the boxes.
“Sure, uh. Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Ralph tears open the boxes with gusto and starts meticulously arranging the various pieces of cardstock, envelopes, and gauzy little inserts into neat assembly line piles.
Yup. It’s official. I’m a pervert.
He steps back a moment to check out his setup.
“These are really nice invitations.”
“Beautiful, right? Damon… Have you met Damon? He does most of the graphic design for the museum’s special events and exhibitions.”
“Yeah, Damon’s cool. He maybe talks about fonts a tad too often for me, but other than that, he generally seems like a good guy.”
“Agreed. On both counts.”
So!” He rubs his hands together in anticipation. “You have a clean sponge and a shallow dish we can put some water in?”
“Surrrrrre,” I say as I turn to the kitchen to retrieve the things he requested. “I’m getting the impression you’ve done this before.”
“Big time. My mom had a lot of odd jobs while I was growing up. One was stuffing mailers for a bunch of local companies, and I helped a lot. Oh, thanks,” he says as he takes the sponge and dish from my hands and places them down at the end of the table, right in front of him. “You cool being the stuffer, and I’ll be the sealer?” he asks with excitement.
“Fine. Yeah.”
“Great.”
We sit down side by side and quickly find a rhythm, while stealing sips of our beers and the occasional looks at each other. I notice that his jaw is a bit scruffier than it was this morning. I guess this is the kind of guy who gets the literal five o’clock shadow.
“Aw, did a niece or a nephew draw that for you?”
He’s looking at the tiny crayon masterpiece framed on my wall.
“Uh, no. That would be mine.”
“You drew that?” He has a little laugh. At my expense, it seems.
“Well, not recently!”
“Oh, okay, good!”
“Excuse me! You are looking at the award-winning prize picture of a velociraptor I drew in the third grade. Prize-winning!”
“Third grade? Damn, for third grade, that actually is really excellent. Very cute.”
“Ugh. Cute? I’m allergic to the word cute.”
“That so? Alright. Your artwork is the opposite of cute. It’s sophisticated and… profound.”
“That’s what I’m saying, dude!”
“Question for you. How come inJurassic Parkthe velociraptors look all sleek and scaly, but in all the textbooks and in this esteemed drawing of yours, they look like psychotic chickens?”
