You’re in the wrong part of town at the wrong time of night. A woman (or perhaps a man) wearing too much perfume and too little clothing approaches. “Hey, you wanna date?”
You either politely decline or ignore her altogether, moving quickly along your way. But if this is a particularly wrong place on a particularly wrong night, you get “You wanna date? You wanna date? You wanna date? You wanna date? You wanna date? You wanna date?” until you find yourself literally running down the street to get away.
Now you’re at the Hotel Pierre in New York and you’re being enticed with the most scrumptious hors d’oeurves you have ever seen in your life. You can’t resist; why should you? Meanwhile, you’re at a party and you want to chat with the other guests. One second after you’ve partaken from one plate of hors d’oeurves, another plate is shoved in your face and a loud, insistent voice says, “Hors d’oeurves?” Your thought interrupted, you smile and either indulge in something even more delicious than what was on the first plate or politely decline and attempt to finish your sentence. Two words later into that same sentence, another plate is shoved in your face and another loud voice screams “Hors d’oeurves?”
This continues for the next two hours straight. It got so bad that after trying for ten minutes to squeeze out the thought, I said to another author, “These are Aggressive Hooker Waiters.” Since he happened to write a lot of gritty murder mysteries that typically featured aggressive hookers, he laughed profusely, despite the fact that my comic timing had been thrown off at least 8 times as I tried to spit it out.
This was part of the scene at the wonderful Bertelsmann party last Wednesday at the Pierre. There was one hors d’oeurve plate in particular that would not take no for an answer. It was filled with a complete color palate of melons, fruits, vegetables, Italian meats and what-not and looked quite enticing were it to have made its entrance gracefully and demurely and then just as graciously exited. Instead, this one plate made its return at least 432 times. I believe at one point a waiter offered to pay me to eat something from it. I only hope that his pimp did not slap him silly in the kitchen when he came back after another unsuccessful trip through the ball room.
