I should have known.
I am a firm believer in the old adage that virtue is it's own reward; in fact, I'm inclined to think that there should be no reward for acting virtuously OTHER than the knowledge of your own good deed. If you need recognition or gratitude for your noble acts, then it rather defeats the purpose.
So there your Pope Guy was, not exactly feeling virtuous, but certainly doing the self-congratulatory thing I think most less-than-perfect people (that would pretty much be most of us) do when they know that they've acted appropriately and well at a moment of moral or ethical dilemma.
For the rest of this story to make sense, or at least whatever sense can be garnered from my silliness, you really ought to go back and read my post from 7/8, because that's the "Part I" to which this post is "Part II". (The Bored Of Elders here at the All John All The Time World Church demands that I use proper accounting procedures and methods; ergo, Part II will necessarily follow Part I.) Okay, you folks that didn't already read "Part I", you go now and check it out, while the rest of us wait here...go ahead, we'll wait.
(In the meantime, while we're waiting for those doofuses to finish Part I, did you guys hear the one about the two drunks who were leaving a bar REAL early one morning, having spent the majority of the previous evening being gratuitously over-served by a uncaring bartender, with arms around each other's shoulders as they wended their way out the door and onto the adjacent sidewalk, staggering more than just a little at the Herculean effort. Lying on the pavement, right in front of the bar, was an old, mangy-looking stray dog, who was at the time of being nearly fallen over by the two drunks, vigorously licking his nether regions.
The one drunk stopped suddenly, almost knocking his companion to the ground, looked at the old dog and turned to his inebriated partner and said, "Man, I 'rish, I wish I, I could do that," and then belched a good one.
"I don't know," the other drunk replied, as he stood back and cast an bleary but appraising eye at the dog, then started shaking his head, "he rooks, looks kinda' mean to me.")
You guys all done with Part I? Great, back to the story. (Oh, FYI, I have a neighbor named Oded Rosenblum; backwards, that Dedo Mulbnesor (pronounced DEE-DOE MULB-NE-SOR. Just thought you should know that.)
So after deciding that your Popemeister was an okay dude for behaving myself like a gentleman with my almost new employee in my other life as a struggling entrepreneur, I was walking around the headquarters of the AJATTWC here in the sprawling and always confused San Fernando Valley with what I suspect was an annoying sense of self-congratulation. Hey, I walked the walk and talked the talk, put my money where my mouth was, I stepped up to the plate, use whatever dumb euphemism you want, I had practiced what I had preached. Yay, Pope.
So after chronicling my moment on the cusp of decision for posterity in "Part I", I called my other employee, the TGP, just for a blow-by-blow replay of the job interview with "Harold".
Now keep in mind, TGP stands for "Trans Gender Person", and like for so many of us and our particular afflictions, there's a community of souls out there that loosely band together because they share a commonality; in this case, it would be because many of them have an unusual arrangement of sex organs. (I imagine they make Hammond organs in Hammond IN, right? But I'm damn sure they don't make sex organs there, because I've got relatives all OVER Indiana, and I am absolutely certain, knowing them as I do, that there is NO reason at all to own any kind of sex organ in Indiana. What would you use it for?) So there's a reason why a TGP would know a Harold, who would know Penelope, who would network with Susan, who has a neighbor named...got the picture.
"Hey, TG person, how you doin'?" I said to the TG person when "she" answered. Actually, I just said "hi".
"Hi, Pope. So, how did you like "Harold"?
(Now I want to make something clear right now, before I go any further. Back when I was writing "Part I" of this saga, I had to choose a name to use an alias for my almost new employee, you know, sort of a "names have been changed to protect the bewildered" thing. Since unusual names seem to more readily fit my style (???) of writing, I like monikers like Penelope, or Ezekial or, in this instance, Harold. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT MY TGP WAS ABOUT TO TELL ME UNTIL SHE...TOLD ME. So when I chose "Harold" as an alias, it was completely inadvertent and done unknowingly.)
"You know, I really liked her, she has a nice presence, her background is good, transportation didn't seem to be a problem, it had a good beat, you could dance to it, I'd give it an 88," I told her.
"So, are you going to hire her?"
"Well, I don't know, there's the sex slave thing from a few years ago, hey, I'm just screwin' with..." And I stopped dead, mid-sentence, because it suddenly occurred to me that something very sinister and devious might be taking place here, and in that moment, I knew fear.
"Shit," I said, evocatively.
"What?"
"Damn. Okay, please don't make me ask."
"What?" My sudden realization that fuckery most foul had been perpetrated upon me by my current and future employees, and the 180 degree turn in the conversation that resulted, had rendered my normally voluble neighbor into a tape-loop of "what".
"I'm not going to ask, shit, I can't ask, even you."
Apparently it suddenly dawned on TGP what I was talking about. "Oh," she says, very matter-of-factly, "Harold is a TGP also, I thought you knew that. She's post-op."
Now under any other circumstances, the "normal" reaction from most guys would be "Yeewhew", or something even a great deal stronger than that possibly. But I even surprised myself with my first reaction to the news: "Yeah, I thought she might be."
That was my first reaction.
My second reaction, internally, was more like:
WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING? THAT BEAUTIFUL, VOLUPTUOUS, BLUE-EYED, BLOND-HAIRED SUPER-BABE I WAS TRYING NOT TO DROOL ALL OVER USED TO BE A GUY? ARE YOU KIDDING? (I tend to repeat myself in times of extreme agitation.) THAT GORGEOUS BABE, WHO I DID EVERYTHING I COULD NOT TO STARE AT HER TITS, THAT WAS REALLY A HAROLD PREVIOUSLY? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ALL ABOUT?
Shit.
I honestly don't give a lusty crap what my (not almost) new employee has for "equipment" between her legs, any more than I give a damn about her religion, her politics, her stand on same-sex marriage (I imagine I can guess that one) or anything else about her personal life. I only care about one thing: can she do the job? And if she can, will she do it well?
I can't imagine why anything else would be relevant.
I found myself very attracted to Harold; she was very good-looking, she had style and class and I'll bet she's really interesting, and I'll also bet her story is an amazing one. Even after I learned of her "past", I still thought she was "hot", although as an employer, I'm not allowed to think that. Actually, I can think it, I just can't say it out loud, so you didn't hear me say I thought my new employee is "hot"; just ignore that.
So now I REALLY have some considering to do; I need to contemplate my reaction to my new worker. I'm surprised and a little perplexed at what I'm feeling about the whole affair. (Interesting choice of words, eh, what?)
I'll tell you one thing for sure: the first time Harold tries to kiss me goodnight after a gig, I'm...well, I'm not sure what I'll do. (Yeah, I know, I'm flattering myself, but I'm allowed; hey, I'm the Pope, gotta' love me.)
You know, life was a lot simpler when there were only two genders. Granted, I was never sure if men were the "opposite" sex or women were, but I'm betting on men, given our track record. Most guys I know could screw up a two-house paper route, when it comes to relationships/women.
I wonder what kind of music Harold likes?
Love and androgyny,
PJTT
copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.
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