The Further Adventures of Dude Totally - Private Guy

I looked through my closet for something to wear. You never can get the stench of barrel grime, stale Pabst, and the sweat of millions of years of evolution off your body. I decided to dress sharp to distract her eye and confuse her senses. I picked a bright red shirt - just the right color to match my devastating lips, and I grabbed a white tie to match the makeup I couldn't scrape from my face even if I used a belt sander.

I looked in the mirror that hung like a convicted felon on the lonely side of my bedroom. Not bad. Not pin-up material, but if it was last call and I had bad eyesight, I could see any number of prostitutes giving me the once-over. I slicked back my hair so that it looked like I was yanked out of a vat of hot caramel by my neck, paused in mid-comb and pulled a Fonzie.

"Ayyyyyy"

That's the stuff. It was getting dark, and I could see the bubbles that rippled along the hastily-applied joyless wallpaper of my bedroom. It looked like a teenager's face. I looked at my watch and grunted. Then I looked at it again because I realized I never took note of the time. It was 8:00. I still had some time. So, with all the grace and style of a man walking around completely dressed from the waist up and wearing only boxers and black socks from the waist down, I pounced towards the scotch.

I realized that I didn't have any ice cubes, so I took out my shoe horn and scraped the frost that had collected around the perimeter of the inside of the freezer. There was only enough room for a fudge bar, and if I had the money, I would have had one in there. Then I remembered I had almost five grand burning a hole in my mattress. I looked over my shoulder at the bed, straining under the weight of approximately two tons of change. The box spring looked like an open hot dog bun and the wrought-iron frame was twisting itself into the kind of painful smile a kid makes when he's soiling his diaper.

I filled my glass with scraped frost and poured myself a stiff one. I took a sip and I could taste the freon in what was now a scotch Slurpee. I stood regally, with a hand on my hip, like a grotesque David Niven impersonator and thought of Molly. What was she doing right now? Was she splashing expensive oils and soaps all over that race course of a body, or was she waddling from the toilet to the linen closet with her underwear at her ankles because there was no more toilet paper on the roll?

Maybe she had forgotten about me. Nah, not a broad like that. Dames like that don't give clowns like my five grand just to drink scotch in their underwear and play air guitar to "Black Magic Woman." No, she had more sinister plans.

I downed the rest of my drink, took a bite out of the day-old slice of pizza and headed for the door. Minutes later, I returned, put my trousers on, filled my pockets with cough drops, ATM receipts, and pen caps and started back towards the door. I caught a reflection of myself in that mirror and I about crapped my pants since I thought it was someone else. The bed creaked like an old man's knees, and I heard the whistle of a bolt shooting from the bed frame as it lodged itself into the wall. That was the sign it was time to leave. I cracked my knuckles and set my jaw. It was time to do something stupid.

(On the next episode of "DUDE TOTALLY - PRIVATE GUY"):

"Forgive me for not standing up, Mr. Totally, but it's not polite to wag your finger in a woman's face"

"That's not my finger"


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