And Now For Something Really Different
by Wayne Scheer

Me and Samantha are really hitting it off, and I can’t believe my luck. Since Arlene dumped me less than a year ago, I’ve been digging myself into a hole and bitching about getting dirty. Now, for the first time in a long while, I’m looking up and seeing daylight in the face of a dark-haired beauty with incredible deep eyes.

I tell her this and she says, “Don’t give up your day job. You’d make a lousy poet.”

At first, I don’t know what to say. Arlene was always serious. I remember showing her my video collection of old Monty Python clips, especially my favorite one, “Man with Tape Recorder Up His Nose.” That’s the one where a man comes out on a stage, sticks a finger up his nose and music comes out. It cracks me up every time I even think about it, but all Arlene could say was, “I don’t get it. It’s silly and pointless.”

“Of course, it’s silly and pointless,” I said. “That’s the point.”

“I still don’t get it,” she said.

So I watch Samantha laughing at my pathetic attempt at honesty and I decide this isn’t a good time to tell her I’m not really a private detective, like I told her. I just said that to explain why I was hanging around outside her building.

What happened was I drove by her apartment house one night and accidentally caught a glimpse of her naked. Since then, I’ve been obsessed, spending more time than I care to admit parked outside her apartment, hoping to get another look. But earlier today, her ex was bothering her and I scared him off. So she sees me as a hero.

And she agreed to have coffee with me.

I change the subject. “Do you like Monty Python?”

She stands up, right there in this coffee shop with the waitress and a half-dozen customers looking at us, sticks out her right leg and shakes it while twitching her head like a bird on speed and waving spastically with her left arm. She takes about two steps like that and turns around. We both shout, “The Ministry of Silly Walks!” And we spend like the next hour talking about our favorite Python skits.

We even get serious and talk about how neither of us believes in any one religion, but in some kind of spirit that wants us to do right in spite of ourselves. This leads us somehow to politics and how we think the present administration is all messed up. She takes my hand, kind of makes her bottom lip disappear and looks at me with the darkest, deepest eyes I’ve ever seen.

“I’m responsible,” she says. “I voted for Ralph Nader the first time.”

“So it was you!” I shout. And we laugh some more.

All the time I’m thinking, what should be my next move? I’m wishing I shaved in the last few days or at least used deodorant this morning. I’m worried about coming on too strong. After all, I’m not exactly every woman’s dream. I’m a little over six feet and weigh one-forty after a heavy bowl of pasta. My hair is kind of dirty brown and it doesn’t exactly stay in place. A former girlfriend said I look sort of like a mop with an Adam’s apple and a dick. I want to ask her out on a real date, but I’m afraid.

While I’m torturing myself, she says, “So, when are you going to invite me to your place to watch “Monty Python and the Holy Grail?”

 

 

 

I almost swallow my tongue. I’m trying to act cool because this is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, even if her nose is a little crooked and her top front teeth kind of overlap. “Um, well...” and I start stuttering like an idiot.

That’s when she gets this look on her face, where her eyes are so big they look like they’re going to pop out. “You’re the one who rang my doorbell about a week ago, aren’t you? You buzzed me and then you started stuttering.”

I try to deny it by looking innocent and not saying anything.

“You woke me up. When I looked out the window, you’re the guy I saw running to his car and driving away, aren’t you?”

“No, well, yeah...you see, I uh, was testing the security of your building so I rang a few buzzers and nobody let me in, so I left. Your building passed its security inspection, by the way.”

“You’re full of shit.”

I don’t know what to say. If I tell her the truth, I figure she’ll freak out. If I tell her I found out her name and ran a computer check of her, she’d think I’m some kind of stalker, which, of course, I am. But in a good way. I mean, all I want to do is get to know her and get her to know me. I can’t think of a good story, so I take a chance. “Yeah, that was me.” I kind of mumble and hang my head. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

She stares at me. I see her cock her head to one side and wrinkle her forehead until her eyebrows almost come together. Then she reaches across the table, gives me one of those Elaine-Benis-from-Seinfeld shots to the shoulder, and laughs. “You almost had me. That guy was shorter than you and creepy looking.”

Before I can speak, she looks at me with those incredible eyes and says, “So are we going to your place or not?”

Later that night, we’re in bed together. We just had sex that was so good, I think if I died right now, it would take major reconstructive surgery to wipe the grin off my face.

“Samantha, I have something to tell you,” I say without thinking. But then I hold back telling her the truth. Maybe there really is a spirit in me that wants me to do the right thing, but I don’t know what the right thing is. She could really be the one. I want to be honest with her, but how do you tell a woman you’re in bed with that you’ve been stalking her?

She kisses me while I’m rearranging the words in my head like I’m playing some kind of crazy game of Scrabble. “You know me well enough to call me Sam,” she says and giggles.

She really giggles. And I think I’m falling in love. I’ve only known her for a few hours, so it’s dumb to think about love, I know, but I’m already imagining I’m introducing her to my parents and my father says to Sam, “So you think you can put up with him, eh?” And she says, “Yes, sir. For the rest of my life.” And my mother hugs her and says, “There’s nothing to you. Let me fix you a sandwich. Ham and cheese, maybe some potato salad?” And I put my arm around Sam and say, “I love her just the way she is.” And we all laugh and hug, like we’re a real family.

 

 

I don’t even see my mother spaced out on her pills or my father sleeping off last night’s hangover.

“So what do you want to tell me?” Sam asks as she sits up on one elbow and lets the covers drop so I see her little round breasts with tiny pink nipples. I think of the first time I saw them from my car as I passed her apartment window. I kiss her, then I give each of her breasts a peck, and I say, “I just wanted to tell you how much I . . . like you.”

“Well, I like you, too,” she says and reaches her arm around to grab me by the hip and pull me towards her. We kiss some more. Then she says, “Now tell me what you really wanted to say.”

And I tell her how I want to be honest with her and how I hope one day I can look her in the eye and say, “I love you.”

She smiles. “Good line. How many times have you used that one?

“A couple, but this time I mean it.”

She laughs. “So when are you going to tell me why you’ve been hanging around my apartment building and why you rang my bell last week?”

I look at her and feel my heart pounding like it’s decided to stop backing up the rest of my body and do a solo. “You know?”

“As soon as I saw that beat up old Toyota of yours, I knew it was you.”

“And you got in my car anyway and let me take you to my place and…”

“Fucked your brains out. Yeah. I figured, how dangerous could you be if you like Monty Python?”

“But I could have been some kind of deranged serial killer? You should be more careful, you know.” Then I realize I’m trying to protect her from me. I’m wondering if maybe the world slipped off its axis and nothing is real anymore. I think maybe this is just another one of my fantasies and I’ll wake up and be Wendell Millikins again, computer web designer, and all around dweeb.

But it isn’t a fantasy. Sam is real. She knows who I am, and she likes me anyway.

I tell her the truth about how I saw her that first time and why I was hanging around her apartment building today. I even tell her how I checked her out on the computer and found information she sent to a computer dating service.

“So you’ve been stalking me?” She rearranges herself on the bed and pulls the covers back over her breasts.

“Yes.”

“You’ve been parking in front of my building hoping to get another peek at me nude?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sweet,” she says, and giggles. “But does this mean you’re not really a detective?”

I nod. When I see the look of disappointment on her face, I add, “But I could be.”

“And I could be your assistant. And we could go on stake outs together.”

“Sure. I’ll use my detective name, Peter Owens, and you can be…”

“Sam Owens,” she says, smiling and kissing my lips. “We could be a husband and wife detective team.”

She rests her head on my chest and starts humming the theme from the old Monty Python show. We both make farting sounds at the appropriate places.