Friday, April 1, 2016

The Story About Cupid on Page One

Yep, it's my buddy Cupid!

"How about we do some work on our book this morning?" I asked Cupid, the former Greco-Roman God of Love whose memoir The Boy Who Shoots the Arrows I was co-authoring.

"Why not?  Family Feud sucks today!"

Cupid and I had been working for several weeks now on producing a memoir that would restore some luster to his somewhat tarnished image since he had stepped down as antiquarian God of Love. I hoped it might do something for my image too which had pretty much been tarnished since birth.

"Cupid,” I began “are you still a God?  Or are you just an ordinary person, like Jeb Bush?”

"No, once a God, always a God. I'm a God without Portfolio."

"Has there been any talk of your getting a new position?"

"Zeus offered me the job of God of Love for Shitty Looking People, but I turned him down."

"Sounds really difficult."

"You'd be surprised. A lot of people like Nicholas Cage." 

"Do your arrows still have any potency?"

"A little bit."

"So you can still make people fall in love?"

“No, no exactly.”

“What then?”

“I can make people admire your clothing." 

Just then the doorbell rang and I excused myself while Cupid set about grooming his wings. Damn, that meant I’d be vacuuming feathers until midnight again!

I opened the door and it was my sometime girlfriend Sandra. 

"This is a surprise,” I said. “Do you want to come in and meet....?”

"No, Perry, and I don’t want to beat around the bush any longer either," she said.  "I think we should stop seeing see each other.”

"But why? I just bought a refrigerator magnet with your name on it." 

"I'll be direct. You're not well-groomed, you wear your hair too long for someone who hasn't got any, and your table manners are straight out of the Three Stooges.”

“Well, you have to emulate someone!”

“And you're not assertive enough. All you do is watch movies. Trhe only exercise you get is pushing your fore finger up and down on the clicker.”

“But wait till you see how it’s helped my thumb wrestling!”

"And  you’re just not cultured enough. You told everyone at the Book Club you thought Shelley and Joyce were a couple of Jewish girls!"

"That's unfair, Sandra!  I only thought Joyce was Jewish."

THWACK!

From the next room I could hear Cupid unleashing one of his quietly invisible arrows in Sandra’s direction.  What a pal, he was doing what he could for me!

"I'm sorry, Perry," Sandra spoke softly.  “I'm afraid this is goodbye." 

I was crushed. Sandra turned to leave. Forever.

"Oh, by the way, Perry," she added brightly. 


"I just love your shoes!"

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2 comments:

Russell said...

Aww, a happy ending. You must have been wearing Hushpuppies or those adorable little Barney house shoes you're so attached to.

Promise to braid your ear hair and maybe she'll take you back.

Perry Block said...

Yeah, I guess it was a happy ending after all, for Sandra that is. I wasn't sure where I was going with her character anyway, so I thought it was time to get rid of her at least for a while. Besides after my book is a smash hit, I'll be knee deep in women! Knee deep in really short women.