THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS

I am not Eliot Spitzer. For this alone, I should be liked, but there are thankfully other reasons.

For those who fear that I am turning into Greta Van Susteren, meaning an intelligent person that beats topics that nobody cares about into the ground, fear not. This blog is not going to be “All Eliot, all the time.” If I did that, he would win.

Yet recent events directly related to the Tygrrrr Express have made the story more relevant.

The traveling carnival that is my existence made its way to Las Vegas for a political conference, followed by a trip to Chicago that was as unexpected as it was pleasant. Despite the fact that I detest cold weather, it turned out to be one of the best trips I have ever had. I met the Chicago Cannonball, and we are both very happy.

I left Chicago on the 9th to go back to LA, and three days later (yesterday) made my way to Hotlanta. I was supposed to then either veer off to Miami, and frolic on spring break in South Beach, or head Westbound and Down to Alabama to hang out with my buddy on the Auburn campus. Either way, barely legal women in bikinis awaited.

Because things are going well with the Chicago Cannonball, I would not be be able to treat any of these young hot women like ice cream. Yet looking is still legal.

Due to circumstances that are bizarre even based on my low standards of normalcy, I am not going to either of those cities. The ticket to South Florida was insanely expensive. Then again, my most recent ex is 22, and she will be down there for Spring Break, so perhaps this is for the best. Yes, South Florida is big, but most likely she is on one specific street, since it was where I recommended she go when we were dating, and everybody listens to me when it comes to socializing.

The backup plan was Bama, hanging with my fellow Tigers at Auburn. Today my backup plan got blown up like Fallujah. My friend that I was supposed to be staying with has disappeared. His cell phone is not working, and I cannot reach him. Most likely he went with his friends on break and forgot about me. He is a good guy, but sometimes he suffers from a medical condition that requires “cranial-glutial extraction surgery.” I am sure he will feel awful when he remembers, but I will let him off the hook after a couple snide remarks.

So the Tygrrrr Express was about to be possibly homeless. I doubt it would have come to that. I would have asked a local Rabbi for a place to sleep for the night, and I am sure they would have said yes. Of course, I would then be asked to attend the Saturday morning prayer service, which conflicts with sleeping until noon. There is no way I would dare stay at a Rabbi’s home and not attend the service. I may be lazy, but am not ill mannered.

After sitting down and analyzing the situation (ok, I might have been sobbing like a four year old girl, but if it is not on You-Tube, it never happened), I took a couple breaths and tried to figure out what was important.

Why did I care so much about going to Miami? Because I always go to Miami in March. There are usually 96 reasons I go, which if I am correct in my calculations is the result of adding 36 + 24 + 36. Yet since I am seeing the Chicago Cannonball, the entire trip is pointless. Not to invalidate people who brought me into the world, but those two people know d@mn well I wait for them to go to sleep after “Matlock’,” or “Murder, She wrote,” and then hang out in South Beach.

As for Alabama, I like my friend despite this lapse in his sanity, but again, this trip was about being around hot women. Why? Because I am male and have a pulse.

I am not somebody that window shops. I do not browse. I do not walk into a store unless I am a buyer. I do not go near a jar of candy and just stare at it, be it after dinner mints or eye candy. I take it with me, be it either in my pocket or over my shoulder.

Yet instead of feeling sadness, life is good. The Chicago Cannonball and I are getting along great. At the risk of having growth pangs, there is a realization here that is important.

Dating is not the ends for me. It is the means. I have always been about being with one person, with short term gratification being what Monte Hall would describe as the consolation prize behind “door # 2.” So if the goal is meet somebody, and I have, wouldn’t an ounce of sense tell me that if I have to be stranded, I might as well be with somebody lovely?

I just thank God that every twice in awhile he gives me just enough common sense to make an intelligent decision when it matters most. How many men have money, power, lovely families…and throw it all away because they are in the wrong city at the wrong time with the wrong woman, when the best of everything is in front of their selfish faces the entire time?

Hugh Grant cheated on Elizabeth Hurley with a black hooker. Folks, if a guy cannot be happy with Elizabeth Hurley, he will never be happy. Bill Clinton nearly got fired because he could not keep his pants zipped. Eliot Spitzer went from a shot at the White House to the newest husband in the Dog in Heat House. I have seen his wife. Even after three kids, she is a hot piece of New York Skirt Steak.

Some would look at me and say, “talk to me when you have been married 20 years.” That is not the answer. I do not have the answer, but I suspect it has to do with the notion that we can either satiate those we love, or satiate ourselves. Imagine if Eliot Spitzer had taken his 80,000 dollars that he spent on a woman whose real name he did not even know, and instead bought his wife an $80,000 piece of jewelry. Perhaps she would have done those things that a mother of three never talks about in public.

It is not about “being bought.” Unlike the Kobe Bryant situation, you have to buy the gift before you screw up. That way it is a heartfelt gesture, and not a business contract. I am sure it is not easy for a man married a couple decades ith children, but even those men should look at their wives and say, “Forget my bad back and your vericose veins (or something more tactful). The kids are somewhere else, and we are going to act like we did back then. Now put down the laundry and help me find the cattle prod (ok, I went too far, but the point is valid).

For some men, as I said, dating a string of women is the end. That type of life is just not for me. A real man gravitates towards those who matter most on a long term basis.

The song by the Proclaimers states that, “I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more, just to be the man who walked that 1000 miles and showed up at your door.” Ok, so I am not that gallant. I will be taking a plane and then a taxicab. Yet as much as cold weather scares the daylights out of me, and as much as Chicago might be the worst Spring Break city in America, I suspect I am making the right decision. Besides, the Chicago Cannonball agrees with me, which does help.

So out of nowhere, I am headed back to Sweet Home Chicago today.

I do not have Eliot Spitzer’s money, or his power. However, I am much handsomer than him. Even unkempt, my hair is quite good. I also have something that he may never have again, due to his own travels in the wrong areas…a happy love life that matters.

Because I am not, nor do I ever want to be Eliot Spitzer, Miami and Bama will have to wait, perhaps forever. No, I did not immediately make the right decision. I had a lot of help, perhaps divine intervention. Yet given every chance to make the right decision, I actually did.

I am off to give the Chicago Cannonball the ketchup bottle treatment.

It will not cost me a fortune, and yet the effect is priceless.

eric

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 6:40 am and is filed under POLITICS, WOMEN. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.