A little spicy in some parts and a little pricey in paperback (my bad) even if it is nearly 400 pages of really fun and funny stuff. But a big discount on this book is available for the print or e-book version at my storefront on the publisher's site at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=4294111. It's also available on Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook Book for only $2.99
Seventy chapters of romantic situation comedy - Subjects such as, "Do you have to have money and a nice car to find romance?" "Do you have to be good looking to find romance?" "How long should you wait after the body is cold?" "Romance at the office" "Dealing with the relatives" "The Psychic Lover" "Romance on a budget"
Chapter Sixteen
Flattery Will Get You Everywhere
But Are You Really Sure You Want To Go Everywhere?
Yes, we’ve all know the type, the super nice guy who is constantly smiling and saying nice things to all the girls. May as well keep them all happy. He wouldn’t want to be partial to only certain ones. He never stops with the gifts, flowers and nice compliments. The recipients may be a little surprised at first but they like the flattery nevertheless, even if they brush him off and have no real use for him. But as time goes by things always change. Maybe the flattery and the gifts to some of them become less frequent but they don’t forget it. And although it may be some years later one or more of the recipients who are no longer even thought about decides she might like a little or a lot more of that flattery.
She’s such a nice lady, everyone says about her. She’s always smiling and saying such nice things about everyone, and sometimes she becomes a little surprised when there are advances from gentlemen to whom she has been so flattering, only for them to find that she is nice to everyone and not really as easy a mark as they would hope. But it’s better to be nice and for people to think of us that way than to have a bland personality that hardly anyone remembers.
The flattery has its good effects and bad. You meet someone that you find quite attractive and find yourself lavishing them with nice comments to let them know of your fondness. Possibly some time later, maybe months, maybe even years, your opinion of the person or even your tastes change and you no longer see this person in the same fond light. Yet you find that the person remembers you and particularly all the nice things you said about them.
By this time maybe the person is not only no longer attractive to you, and perhaps not even remotely attractive from your view. Okay, let’s be honest. After all this time you find the person to be outright disgusting, but there they are once again in front of you nevertheless. The person turns up with the face from the past that you do remember for sure, but it’s now a face that you no longer desire the presence of in your environment. And for some almost mystical reason you don’t seem to be able to get rid of the person. He or she seems to turn up everywhere you go, nearly as if they are following you. Then you find out they actually are following you. You tell yourself that maybe flattery isn’t such a good thing after all.
It indeed becomes more than just a sad affair when that lovely sweet girl you knew from your high school days is now a crotchety old lady, in need of an exorcism, who is now going to great lengths and using some rather unconventional methods to try to steal you from your wife and kids. You realize now that it probably would have been better if you hadn’t offered to carry her books when you were in school. But how could you have known that a few flowers and gifts given to her in high school could have such long lasting effects, and stayed with her through her transformation from a sweet young innocent girl to the mentally twisted, physically repulsive and pervasive stalker that she is now?
After a long nerve-racking day a the office the last thing you needed was to come home and find her gazing into the distance with that crazy grin on her face, while being so gracefully entertained by your caring wife and kids at the dinner table, as they look with wide eyes at one another with hopes of someone being able to tell them who she is.
Well, it seems that none of us have a crystal ball in order to tell the future, not that any of us would want to use it if we did if it meant finding out things like this, and we all just take our chances. The fact that she keeps showing up and has found out everything there is to know about your present life is considerably disturbing to you. But you tell yourself it will only be a matter of time before she gives up and stops following you everywhere you go, showing up at the house and asking your family if she can come in, and calling your office a dozen times a day, not to mention introducing herself to your employer as your wife. And you nearly tear your hair out realizing that just as it took many years for her to become so decrepit, it could take some years as well for her to hopefully fade away.
Yes, flattery is a wonderful thing and can work wonders or it can create a living nightmare for you as you discover when you find that the once high school sweetheart is now back in the picture and does not at all want to leave. As you now find yourself refraining from giving compliments of any kind, not even to your family, you make an attempt to find in your heart some kind of understanding and compassion of the strange one that was once your girl friend.
But its difficult as you search the recesses of your mind with her standing before you, and you see her wearing that same dress she wore that night so many years ago when you and she made love. And now with a wry and twisted look on her face she’s trying to make it happen again. You attempt to tell yourself it’s kind of special but there’s just something about the timing of it all that seems to make you want to gag and spit and run.
While frantically making your escape from her in the grocery store parking lot the memories begin to come into view. Yes, it’s all coming back now. Her family was in the undertaking business and as a young girl she seemed to be disturbed with the whole matter. You never listened much while courting her but now it seems to make a little more sense. Most families have things they enjoy sharing, the outings, picnics, camping, everyone reading by the fire, puttering in the woodshop in the basement, the garden and so forth. But there was just something about there being dead bodies in the house, and those bodies being the main past time of the family that put her in some sort of fixation about it all. And not having entirely all the details of what went on in the family you find yourself remembering someone saying that people who live together gradually begin to resemble one another. And you find it quite eerie and unnerving that she now looks like a walking talking semi-functional corpse.
And so you have found that all that flattery can and has had some long-lasting and very interesting effects, but you resolve firmly within yourself to never do it again.
