Counseling in the Park

Yesterday Jackie came over to my house to hang out while we worked on job applications. However, we were pretty lazy and ended up not accomplishing much, so we ventured out into the world. First we stopped at Borders and picked up some books (because I think spending money when you're unemployed is always a good idea...) and then took them to a nearby park. We were sitting near the edge of it so we could see the car since there wasn't very much money in the meter. A little older lady drove up in her Mercedes, pulled into a parking space and asked us if the meters were in operation. We said yes. Somehow this launched her into a discussion of how awful her day had been, how she would have liked to have driven her car off a bridge, how her identity was stolen, and on and on and on. She eventually got her dogs out of the car and sat down with us in the grass. This seriously lasted almost an hour - I actually had to go feed the meter.

While Jackie and I were being good citizens preventing a possible suicide, we learned about the lady's $20,000 dining room table hand-carved in the Philippines, her $100,000 worth of furniture that was stolen from storage, and how her late husband's personal assistant had done this to her. We also learned that she, in her 60s, is apparently man-crazy over nearly any boy that walks around, preferably under 40. She griped about how she has so much money, but she just can't get to most of it right now. I found myself wanting to interrupt her, saying, lady, count your blessings. I probably will never see the amount of money you have accessible right now in my lifetime, but I restrained myself.

Unfortunately, after telling us we should check out the concert in the park, which we would have done, she decided to go to. At that point we told her we had dinner plans. She seemed genuinely grateful for the time we had already spent with her, so we didn't feel too badly about it.

After that we decided to get some drinks. (I'm not sure why I'm putting this up since we look kind of large.



And here was the evening's benefactor, trying to look all suave and not even noticing what Jackie was doing. He actually offered to take us shopping for clothes.