Do I Look Like A 'Ho, Or Was He Just Slow?

We were doing a photo shoot out in Coney Island the other day for our August cover (it is a big surprise, trust me, and just might get national attention! Seriously!) Sorry I can't let the cat out of the bag just yet because you never know who is reading your blog (you know who I'm talking about if you're reading this--think I'm *that* stupid?) but it is great.

Anyway, Barbara (my photographer -- check out her website at hppt://www.hansenphotographics.com
and I were packing up her equipment in her car (not cheap cameras, I can assure you) when a rather, eh, 'confused' young man, 23 if he was a day, came up to us. I was a little wary of this because the trunk was open, Barbara was bent over into it, and he comes over while his boys hang back. My spider sense (or street sense) was tingling.

"Um, excuse me, do you girls live here?" Skeezer said, taking off his jersey and, how can I describe it, caressing his bare chest (no chest hair, by the way.)

"No," I said, planting myself between him and Barbara who is in a very vunerable position. I am also trying to block the contents of the trunk. I look over to his boys and give them a chin nod just to say yeah, I see you, too.

"Um, do you come here a lot?"

"No...we come here once in a while. This morning we were taking pictures."

"Oh. Well, uh, do you know the area?"

"Not really other than right here, no."

"Oh," Skeezer says, still caressing his bare, bony, pale chest. "Because, um, I'm looking to get served.

Now perhaps I am slow. Perhaps years of working on a pet magazine till all hours of the night have fried my brain. Suddenly I get a picture of Skeezer on the Boardwalk getting approached by a summons server with him accepting the summons. Why would he want to get served on the boardwalk? I think to myself.

"You want to get served?" I ask.

"Yeah, served. You know where I can get served?"

Suddenly that light in my brain that says ooooohhh, he means serviced.

"You mean serviced?" I said. Hey, I figure if you're old enough to ask, you're old enough to say it right.

"Yeah, yeah," Skeezer says.

I fold my arms and plant myself even more firmer in the asphalt beneath me. "No, I don't know where you can get serviced." There was so much ice in my voice I could almost feel it crackle in the air.

At that point his boys, if not him, got the point that I was not amused and a tangle with me was not going to be an easy day's work. "C'mon, c'mon'" the Skeezettes said. "Let's go."

"Oh, oh, oh, sorry to have bothered you," Skeezer says.

I stare him down until he walks away.

Then it hits me.

"Barbara, do we look like 'ho's, or was that kid just %$#@ slow?"

Ick!

This happened to me once before when an ex-boyfriend and I were walking along Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood many years back. What the song says is true--NOBODY walks in L.A., except from the door to the car and to another door. Being New Yorkers, we said, eh, let's walk around a bit, no realizing that the only people who walk in L.A., at night at least, are either working-class immigrants coming or going to slave-labor jobs or people who are employed in the aforementioned "service" industry. We both had extraordinarly long hair, were dressed in all black, and wearing our punk jump boots.

Eventually, a car with tinted windows pulled up to us. Great, I said to myself. A cop wondering why we're actually walking. The horror! We must be miscreants.

"Hey!" a voice called from the window. "How much for the pair?"

Ex-boyfriend looked at me, and I at him, quizzically. Then, in one of those moments that happens when people know each other well, we had a mutual, unspoke oohhhh moment.

"C'mon, let's keep walking," Ex says.

"Now wait a second," I said, going up to the car (just a bit closer, definately not to the window or within grabbing distance. "I'm curious to see how much we're worth."

"DIANE ARE YOU CRAZY LET'S GO!"

"How much are we talking?" I said to the voice in the car.

I won't say, but it wasn't bad. A little lower than I was expecting, but I had no reference point. I probably could have haggled for more. We kept walking. No matter what price he was willing to pay, my dignity, health, and safety aren't for sale at any price.