Hide Me Quick! A Christmas Story...

Some men have it.  Some men don't.  Sex appeal.  Have you ever noticed that when you go to a Christmas party there is always one fellow that the women are just naturally drawn to?  He might be fat.  He might be bald.  But, he's got it!  He is surrounded by laughing, giggling women that keep bringing him drinks and letting him nibble off their plates.  He never has to stand in line to get his food,  Miss Tight Sweater is bringing it to him. 

Has he got a billion dollars in his bank account?  Well.... he might...  but, it might just be that he knows what women love to hear.  Somebody once said that men love with their eyes, but women love with their ears.  And what is it that women love to hear?  "Wow!  I love that dress!  You look good enough to make a bulldog break his chain!"  Yep.  As much as I hate to admit it, it works for me!

Some men can say that to a woman and she is putty in his hands.  Other men can say the same thing and end up with the woman thinking, "He is disgusting!!!! "  It all depends on whether or not the man just naturally has "it".  And my daddy had "it".  He had a way of making the most homely wall flower feel attractive, and, like I said, women love with their ears....  Well, when I was a little girl seven years old, my daddy made the mistake of telling one particularly homely lady that she put Marilyn Monroe in the shade.  Bad mistake.  Nowadays, I guess you can't say somebody is fat and ugly, you have to say they are weight and beauty "challenged".  I go along with whoever said, "Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes slam to the bone!" 

 But, getting back to my story.  It was Christmas Eve 1963.  I was the youngest of six children.  My two oldest sisters were married and moved away.  That particular Christmas Eve found Mama, Daddy my three teenaged siblings and me all at home. Mama told me to go on to bed because everybody knows that you have to be asleep for Santa Claus to come.  So I hugged everybody good night and went on to bed.  Of course I wasn't about to go to sleep.  I was straining my ears to see if I could hear any reindeer hooves on the roof.  I didn't hear any reindeer, but what I did hear  was my brother John say, "Daddy, there's a lady out in the front yard hollering your name!"  I could hear my mother say, "Roy!  That's Mrs. Green!  I think she must be drunk!"

 About that time Daddy came busting into my bedroom with a terrified look on his face.  "Suzy!  Hide me quick!"  I didn't know what was going on, but I could hear Mama and my brothers and sister laughing.  I held up my bed covers and Daddy dove under down to the foot of my bed. About that time Mrs. Green, who was not only fat and ugly, but drunk as Cootie Brown, came busting into my bedroom with Mama and all the gang right behind her. Mrs. Green flipped on the light switch and hollered, "Where is that handsome devil?  I want my Merry Christmas kiss!!!"  I held the covers tight up under my chin, but it was a dead give away.  That big lump down at the end of my bed was Daddy!

"There you are!"  Mrs. Green squealed with delight as she yanked the covers back and discovered Daddy squashed up in a ball as small as he could make himself.  I, at that point, was jumping up and down on the bed and saying, "There he is! You found him!"  And at that Mrs. Green grabbed Daddy up and gave him a big old smackaroo right on the mouth. Well, there is no use even trying to describe what poor Daddy looked like. His arms were hanging limply by his side and he just squinched his eyes closed tight like he was about to be given a dose of castor oil. After she had laid one on him, Mrs. Green turned and said to my mother, "Your husband thinks I look better than Marilyn Monroe! He told me so!"  My mother just laughed and said, "I believe you."  Then Mrs. Green sashayed out the front door.

 Of course that was one Christmas Eve that I'll never forget. And did that cure Daddy from being a terrible flirt?  Heck no!  When he was eighty-eight years old I got a call from the assisted living facility where he was living.  The director said Daddy had chased a young nurse into the kitchen and she had jumped up on the counter to get away from him.  He was driving in a scooter chair!  Oh well, I guess she just looked good enough to make a bulldog break his chain!


This Christmas give her what she wants the most.  Take her in your arms. Kiss her. And tell her she is beautiful......