Lou Sanz

‘It’s not a blind date Lou, it’s a favour, you’d be doing me a favour’ my friend told me as she picked out a fresher mango then the one she was currently holding in the supermarket.
‘If he just wants to be shown around town then why don’t you take him?’ My latte had grown cold in the fruit and vegie section and it was taking all my self-control not to express my irritation as the soy milk started to dribble over my hand.

‘Because I’m married Lou, to be honest it beggars belief you’d even ask me why I wouldn’t take a single man on a turn about town.’
‘So you are trying to set me up on a date then?’
‘Oh don’t be so dramatic, it’s just a favour, like I said a favour you’d be doing me.’
‘Listen I’m not really up for it at the moment, I’ve got a mountain of work to get through – why don’t you just put him on the City Circle Tram, I mean it’s free.’
‘Because I care about my friends Lou’. We neared the check out and I decided against trying a Milky Way – I could wait another 15 years for that flavour sensation.
‘I care about my friends.’
‘Just not my friends Lou, is that it?’
‘Oh I don’t even know him enough to know I don’t care about him.’
‘Well if you go in with an attitude like that then to your relationships of course they fail.’
‘We’re not talking about my relationships.’
‘Well someone has to – I mean a screenplay isn’t going to marry you Lou.’
‘That makes no sense’ I spat back.
‘A screenplay isn’t going to go down on you when all is said and done.’
The check-out chick avoided eye-contact with me as I helped place the groceries on the belt.
‘Let’s not talk about this here at a check -out in the supermarket.’
‘Oh fine Lou, when would be a good time to talk about it?’
‘Never!’ I shouted back ‘There is never ever a good  time to talk about that in public, never!’
‘Well I hope you and you’re time machine are very happy Lou.’
‘What? Why are we talking about time machines?’
‘Cause you’ll need one when you go back to the 1950′s and hang out with all your sexually repressed friends.’
‘Fine, me and my Delorian will be very happy. Thank you.’
I left the supermarket feeling flustered after once again having to defend my reluctance to discuss oral sex in the supermarket check-out. Yes, I had issues but on the grand scale of issues one might have I really didn’t think it was a big enough one to take issue with….and so I agreed to take this boy for a turn around town, so he emailed me…
…a detailed quiz that he wanted me to take before meeting me in person….

To: louisewsanz@@@@@@.com
From: The Boy
Subject: Prep work

Dear Louise (I know that people refer to you as ‘Lou’ but it a masculine name and as such will refer to you as Louise).

I am a friend of Carol and Mark’s. We met at NSW University in 1998 when I was undertaking my Bachelor of Economics. Upon graduation I was fast tracked into an internship position of KPMG – given you work in the arts I understand if your understanding of high finance is somewhat retarded but I’m sure there will be other things to discuss upon our meeting. I have moved to Melbourne following my completion of my CPA and MBA in Hong Kong and am looking to devote my time to my personal life for the next 3-4 years with a goal to be being a father and husband by 2013. I also enjoy soccer and movies.

It is always hard meeting new people. It is something I have always struggled with but Carol assures me that your people skills are lacking to and I’m sure given you work in comedy that you will understand my reference to us being perhaps “two peas in the pod”

If you could complete the following quiz by COB (that means Close of Business – pardon my business jargon) I would be most grateful.

1. Do you have a 5 year plan?
2. Do you have health insurance? if so, who is your plan with?
3. Please list your top 3 boys names in order of preference.
4. Do you believe in Jesus or carry any belief in a higher power?
5. What is your favourite pizza?
6. How many intimate encounters do you feel is adequate for a relationship per year?
7. Do you enjoy movies? I very much liked The Da Vinci Code.

I look forward to reading your replies.

Kind Regards,

The Boy.

..my reply…

To: The Boy
From: Lou
Subject: RE: Prep work

I can fit you in for a coffee late Saturday afternoon to show you where the tram leaves from. Meet at Fed Square at 5pm. I can spare only an hour – the Bill is on that night.

Cheers,

Lou

….and so I went to meet him, to fulfill a favour to a friend who to be honest I didn’t really like anymore and I’d really only ever liked her husband – I was pretty sure he was gay and I loved how after a few drinks he would talk about other men’s bottoms and involuntary erections around his best mate Stevo and  then I’d sit back and watch as my friend Carol would stab herself in the thigh with a fork hoping no one would notice.

I knew it was him approaching by the way his shirt was tucked into jeans and holstered up by a Rivers Belt and what was no doubt a River’s sweater tied around his waist, and he also carried that unmistakable look of utter disappointment as he saw me trying to re-stick the sole to my shoe without the aid of glue and the power of my mind.

‘Hi, you must be Louise.’
‘Yep, but you can call me Lou.’
“I’d rather not.’
‘I’d rather you did’
..let the stalemate begin.
‘Ummm… would you like a coffee?’ I asked
‘No, I’ve bought my own drink’ and with that he pulled out a half drunk bottle of Gatorade.
‘Wow, so you bring your own liquid?’ I asked
‘No sense starting one drink when I haven’t finished the other.’
‘Fair call’ I remarked, trying to figure out how many styling products he was using in his hair.
‘So – I was thinking we could jump on tram- ‘
‘- let me stop you there Louise.’
‘Lou’
‘Whatever, listen you’re not really the sort of girl I usually hang out with.’
‘Oh, OK.’
‘Yeah, it’s just that..you’re not Asian enough.’
‘Asian enough?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got a really thing for Asians…but hey I guess I could work around it, for one night anyway – what are your thoughts on liquid eye-liner?’
‘Um, you won’t be working around anything’ I spat out. ‘I’m just meant to put you on a tram, and in answer to your question I prefer a pencil for my eyes.’
‘No need to get angry Louise just because you don’t live up the most average of my expectations and come on I mean you didn’t even fill out the quiz so you must’ve known I’d already be dissappointed with you.’
‘Of course I didn’t do your quiz – who would?’
‘An Asian would.’
‘That’s incredibly racist.’
‘They’re just a diligent culture Louise and looking at you I think you’re of European extraction, what we might call a wog – you people are far too Australianised.’
‘I’m not a wog.’
‘Don’t ethnic bash Louise, it’s really unattractive – I watch SBS.’
He sipped from his Gatorade.
‘Tell me Louise, do you get much sun? Because for an ethnic you look very pale.’
I got up to leave.
‘Oh I knew this would happen, Carol said you were very highly strung.’
‘I’m going now.’
‘Ok, but look so things didn’t work out with us, I’ve got a friend and he’s really into masculine women – would you like to meet him?’
‘I’d rather eat myself out thank you.’
..and with that I became the person I hated, I became Carol with her lust for talking about oral sex in public.

As I left Fed Square my phone rang, it was Carol.
‘So how did it go?’
‘He’s an idiot, a racist idiot.’
‘Oh did he bring up the Asian thing?’
‘You knew about that?’
‘Well in certain lights Lou you could pass even you’d have to admit that.’
I hung up.

A few days ago I got a call from a very old friend of mine. We’d drifted apart over the years due in no small part to her having a fling with a boyfriend of mine at the time cause ‘it was 2002 and everyone’s doing it Lou, maybe your failure to notice that is indicative of your failure to notice his wants and needs…’ Subsequently he left me ‘because all you do is write Lou and walk around in your pants, it’s like being allergic to sugar and being asked to mind a Mars bar’  and  then he set up shop with her, but as luck or dare I say karma would have it he was rumoured to have had an affair with her mother but she assured me as she sat down opposite me that they were working things through because the whole mother incident was really her own fault, because she was the one that had been insistent on renting The Graduate during the summer of the alleged affair.

‘That’s great’ I mumbled as I watched her attempt to perch herself on what can only be described as the most ill designed bar stool of the day.

‘It just never fails to surprise me just how influential and persuasive cinema, the moving image if you will can be’. She fiddled with her Bailey’s martini as I contented myself with mineral water.

‘On anti-depressants hey Lou?’

‘No, why would you say that?’

‘Just the whole mineral water thing.’

‘I’m just not drinking today; I’m going to the gym later.’

‘Oh as a way of combating your depression?

‘I don’t get depression; I just go to the gym.’

‘First time?’

‘No, I go regularly.’

‘Really?…oh I wouldn’t have guessed, must be the thighs – they distract the eye.’

I didn’t say anything for a bit because to be honest I was growing tired of these passive aggressive encounters with people from my past – sure I’ll admit my thighs aren’t great, but I’d done quite well making ‘average’ work and was going to be damned if I was going to let her get away with such a vitriolic remark.

‘Still dying your hair I see….’ I took a moment to revel in my hi-five worthy jab.

‘Of course Lou, after the chemotherapy my hair pretty much turned grey – this was just one to bring a little bit of sunshine to my life.’

‘Oh shit, I didn’t know – when did you…’ I waited for the earth to open up and swallow me whole but apparently not everything that happens on Buffy happens in real life – once again I found myself having to pen yet another letter to the WB television network…

‘When did you get cancer?’

She looked at me oddly as she glanced at the sticky tape holding my shoes together.

‘I never had cancer, I had chemotherapy – you know where they laser your hair, I got my forehead done cause of my cowlick – you have a cowlick don’t you Lou? Wasn’t that how you explained away your abnormally small forehead?’

‘It’s really important that you never ever confuse chemotherapy with laser hair removal therapy ever again.’

I watched as she dunked her chocolate twirl biscuit further into her Bailey’s concoction.

‘It’s all just therapy Lou, all just therapy – I do love how you insist on specificity, it’s still really cute after all these years.’

And there it was, the mention of the revealing elephant in the room – why had she been so insistent on meeting up with my again after all these years…?

‘Because Lou I need to apologise, maybe it was having to sit through hours of laser hair removal therapy, gosh I don’t know but something just really bought my life into sharp perspective and I knew I needed to apologise to you, I just suddenly had this overwhelming feeling of guilt.’

I straightened my back, waiting for the inevitable ‘I wronged you Lou’ speech and contemplated the fact that sometimes I wished I wore trousers more often because they really would’ve been most befitting for the occasion.

‘I just wanted to say I’m really sorry I never returned your Dawson’s Creek box set -’

‘- what!’ I interjected ‘-let me finish Lou, and yes, I know I didn’t even ask you if I could borrow it but at the time I thought you’d say no and I just really wanted to see the complete 3rd season and my torrent download kept f**king up and Lou surely you can emphasise, I mean we’re still talking about the days of dial-up.’

‘You made me come and meet you after 4 years to apologise for borrowing some DVD’s?’

‘It was a box set Lou and we all knew how much you liked Pacey and it just got to the point where it was tearing me up inside – you know I kept getting this image of you all alone with no one to hold you and love you and there you are sitting on the floor in just your pants, peanut butter just smeared on them cause you don’t even care about eating toast properly anymore,  just staring at a blank screen all confused about what you did wrong and how you did haven’t the height to stop him from turning to me to fill some sort of void, a chasm in his life that you had created if I might be so bold – so you understand why I had to apologise.’

‘We are still talking about you taking my Dawson’s Creek box set right?’

‘Yes, what else could I possibly be talking about?’

‘The fact you were my best friend and you shacked up with my ex.’

‘Oh, no…that, I’ve got nothing to apologise for there Lou – he’d broken up with you already by the time we hooked up.’

‘No we hadn’t’

‘Yes, yes he had, sure he didn’t get around to telling you in person for a few weeks but everyone else knew.’

‘Charming.’

I finished my mineral water and went to settle the tab.

‘So after all this did you bring my box set with you, you know as a sign of good faith – that you truly are sorry?’

‘Really Lou? You wanted me to replace to it? Would that make you feel better? I mean for f**k’s sake – haven’t you moved on by now!?’

‘And how are you expecting to get that cake there?’ my mother asked as she lay stretched along her che-lounge, glass of Riesling in one hand, wasabi pea in the other…yes, it was another typical Sunday morning in the Sanz household.

‘I’m just going to catch the train’ I replied.

‘Ok, fine but how’s the going to work out for you? Catching…’ she struggled to pick up another wasabi pea ‘…the train, they still call them trains right?’

‘Yes mum, they still call them trains, it’s great cause horse and cart was just so, well it screamed I’m a member of the proletariat and you know how embarrassing  that can be.’

‘I know what you’re doing Lou, and it’s not going to work, you can’t put your middle class guilt onto me,  I took a horse and carriage to school and you know why Lou..’

‘I know why mum’

‘Don’t interrupt me!’ she finished off her second glass.

‘- cause I’m the daughter of a dairy farmer Lou, a dairy farmer – D-I-A-R-Y – farmer!’

‘You just spelt diary’

‘Oh that’s right mock me with your private school education’

‘You sent me to private school!’

‘Yes, and look at the result, a daughter who thinks she’s going to be OK taking an ice-cream cake on a train of all things and it’s not going to melt, oh how proud your father and I are’..she turned to my father who had been stealthy ignoring us ‘quick Michael, get the camera lets capture this moment’

‘I know you’re mocking me’ I shot back at my mother

‘Oooh look at you learning things…’ she scolded back, pouring herself another wine and polishing off the last of the peas.

The problem my mother was having was that I’d bought my friend an ice-cream cake and given the steering wheel had recently fallen off my 30 year old babe-pulling-Holden (copper chrome on the outside, copper chrome velour on the inside, complete with KMart installed roof-racks) and as such it had been decided that it best I not drive it – and who said my private school education went to waste, I mean surely that was a clear display of my decision making skills…

My mother and I always fought over the pettiest things – like her decision to go ahead with the birth of my sister…

‘I’m not taking advice from an 8 year-old!’ my mother spat at me as she pulled the Volvo into the Safeway parking lot back in 1987.

‘I just really don’t think a woman of your age, what are you now? Like 34…35?…should be having another child, I mean surely I’m enough’ she glared at me…’I mean wouldn’t you prefer to stay hard-to-open and not end up like those new easy to squeeze fad sauce bottles?’

…looking back objectively I’m amazed my mother even cracked a window for me as she left me in the car to go and have lunch with her mother’s group that day.

Then there was the time I started experimenting with foundation…

‘You look orange.’ (this was in the days before most companies in Australia came out with colours for girls that weren’t typically white)

‘…and anyway I can still see your pimples…all of them.’ She remarked as she made no attempt to pre-treat stains as she loaded up the washing machine.

‘It’s the closest colour I could get to match my skin.’

‘Well I reckon you’d still just be better off covering your face with shoe polish, might offend fewer people.’

And yet somehow, through all the trauma with my mother I still years later found myself standing opposite her brandishing a melting ice cream cake in one hand and a broken Riesling bottle in the other and rather than run away from me in attempt to save her life she merely picked up the remote to the television, poured herself another glass of wine and turned to me…’best you get going Lou unless of course you plan on letting that ice cream melt all over you and end up having some teenage emo lick it off you on the train…’

I glared at her as I grabbed my house keys.

‘…just make sure he’s gentle with you…I want my little girl back in one piece…love you Lou.’

And here is your special sick cup’. I watched as my mother put beside my bed a bright pink cup with Bratz dolls on it complete with bendy straw.

‘I also thought you might feel like some toast’ she passed me half a slice of buttered bread.
‘Where’s the rest of it?’ I asked.
‘Well you are bed ridden Lou, so logic would have it – less movement means less food. I’m just looking out for you, you’re getting older, you’re not as agile as you once were – now you’re 30 short and curvy is just a stones throw away from short and boxy.’
I pushed the bread aside and glanced at my frustratingly incomplete DVD collection – how was I expected to watched Series 3 of the West Wing when I was missing the last episode of Season 2!
I’d recently been diagnosed with a flu of sorts and had now been in bed for coming on three days and to say I was bored and frustrated with my lack of activity was like saying that you weren’t really surprised that Peter Andre and Jordan broke up – yes, in short an understated lie.
My mother pushed my legs over as she sat down next to me and touched my forehead with all the maternal care of a woman who once banned her 14 year old daughter from watching the Wonder Years 15 years earlier (something she is still yet to get over).
‘So do you want me to bring the phone in?’
‘What for? I asked, sucking down on my plastic straw.
‘It’s just…don’t you have to call all of your sexual partners over the last 12 months and tell them you’ve caught something?’
‘No, no I don’t have to do that.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s the law these days Lou, they’re putting people in jail who don’t disclose they’re HIV positive, you don’t want to go to jail now do you?’
‘I don’t have AIDS.’
‘I didn’t say AIDS Lou, I said HIV, but hey if you bothered listening I wouldn’t be forced to repeat myself.’
‘It’s the flu mum, I have the flu, the flu is not a sexually transmitted disease.’
‘Well not yet it isn’t.’
‘I don’t think it ever will be mum, it’s an airborne illness.’
‘So was chlamydia once Lou.’
“No it wasn’t mum.’
..and that was the point at which I found myself Wikipediing ‘airborne sexually transmitted diseases’ just to prove a point – it was a shallow win.
Left to my own devices I spent the rest of the morning using the word ‘fisted’ in and out of context on my friends Facebook walls, in general conversation with my very confused father….
‘…see my fist looks better in a glove.’
‘That’s great Lou.’
‘Do you what the technical term is for a fist in the glove?’
‘No I don’t Lou’
‘Come on…just guess.’
‘I’m not guessing Lou, I’m trying to finish my tax.’
‘Well your tax can just go get fisted.’
‘That makes absolutely no sense Lou…maybe you should go back to bed.’
‘I’ll go back to bed when you guess what a fist in a glove is called!’
‘…and look I know you’re not well and everything Lou but maybe you should put some pants on?’
I pulled my t-shirt down a bit further – I was sick and as such would remain pant free until I better – who was he to cage me in!
‘A fist glove! – come on hi-five’…for his own personal reasons my father did not return my hi five sentiment, but I returned to bed triumphant that my fusing of the word fist and glove together would translate into comedy gold at my next stand-up spot.
Back in bed I noticed that one of my close friends had blocked me as a friend after I wrote on her wall….’small Asian woman looking for good fisting recommended you.’
I thought it was hilarious – she not so much. Left with little options I decided to call her.
‘What do you want Lou, I’m in a script meeting.’
‘I just rang to say I’m sorry bout what I wrote on your wall.’
‘You’re not sorry Lou.’
‘No, I’m not really.’
‘I hate it when you’re sick, most people revel in having a few days off but you turn into a child Lou, a child that I’m so glad I never gave birth to – you know why we always look down on your mum Lou? cause the only reason she had you was could Catholics couldn’t afford abortions because they weren’t allowed money back in the 70′s’
‘I don’t think finance is the reason Catholics don’t have abortions.’
‘Name me one wealthy Catholic?’
‘Jackie Onassis?
‘She was an American Lou, an American Lou, maybe you should catch up on your general knowledge while you’re all laid up.’
‘I’m not laid up.’
‘Probably a good idea given you’re mum told me about the STD’
‘Oh for crying out loud the flu is not an STD’
‘Someone had to fuck the pig in the first place.’
‘I don’t have swine flu and I don’t think swine flu is a result of someone fucking a pig.’
‘That’s how AIDS started.’
‘No one fucked any pigs to make AIDS.’
‘Someone had to fuck something’
‘Can we please stop talking about fucking, I’m not feeling well.’
‘Doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t get a leg over’
I hung up on her; she would unblock me eventually and I had bigger fish to fry – I logged back onto Facebook only to find another message from a friend asking me not to message them anymore until I was feeling better, they were worried about getting sick from me  -fine! I had other things to keep me occupied, like dressing my dog in hats and taking pictures for the internet….oh my god, I really hope I feel better soon, I’m only one step away of watching The Gilmore Girls without any sense of irony.