Stunningly Beautiful/Stunningly Beautiful

My girlfriend, Julie, and I had good jobs, nice apartments, lots of girlfriends, lots of free time and enough disposable income. The problem was, at least it seemed to us at the time, we had no men. She had just been dumped by her long-term boyfriend and I had just dumped mine.

We worked together, got together on weekends and read the weekly Burlington-based paper SEVEN DAYS, mostly the personals and mostly the "I SPY" section OF the personals. The deal was: I brought the wine, she ordered the take out. We read the MEN SEEKING MEN section (hey, this is Vermont!) the Women Seeking Men section to check out the competition, and the I SPY section to see if possibly one of us had been NOTICED out there and our future beloved had written about it. We read and laughed, I answered a few "I Spy" offers for yucks pretending to be the "leggy blonde with the Dalmatian", the "lady in the flowered dress at the check out counter at the Price Chopper" (I actually thought that one was me) and "the jazzy, sexy Goth girl at Nectars" the local "no cover ever" night club.


I did it for kicks. I did it because I planned to write a book about it...or at least a short story. Memoir.

Julie and I decided, after much research and bottles of weekly wine and girls nights in that we needed to write our own ad and a good one; one that would bring in the results we wished for--her a husband and me a date. So we concocted a really good ad which I saved...it's been 12 years. It went like this:

36/39, Martinis/margaritas, Sinatra/Stones, Leo/Sagittarius, alpine/Nordic, Jazz/blues, athletic/outdoorsy, Democrat/Progressive, Catholic/Quaker, aerobics/yoga, stunningly beautiful/stunningly beautiful. (And, on that one? We clinked our wine glasses. And waited.)

Now the idea was that we would not have to pay to put the ad in, but we would reap the free benefits of all the hundreds of men we would be beating off with our walking sticks. Until Jonathan, the fact checker from the Seven Days people, called me at my office telling me that Julie and I owed the newspaper money before they could publish our ad.

Jonathan: Ms. Fayston? It's Jonathan from Seven Days?

Me: Oh, hello, Jonathan, how's it going?

Jonathan: Great, um..I'm calling you about your ad in the Personals?

Me:  Oh yes of course (chuckle chuckle) My friend and I put it in. That's THIS WEEK?

Jonathan: Yeah, we got it by deadline, so sure...

Me: Wow! OK...

Jonathan: The thing is Miss Fayston? You owe us a little money if you want this ad to run?

Me: Um...why is that? My friend and I counted the words. It was 10 words or less for a free deal. We aren't math whizzes, but we can count up to ten, Jonathan.

Jonathan: But the thing is you sent in 20 words? (I was beginning to think that this guy was calling from Toronto with all the statements disguised as questions and all.)

Me: What are you talking about, Jonathan? We wrote 10. Ten.

Jonathan: Twenty. Twenty words not ten.

Me: OK, look, (as I rummaged around for the hand-written note in my desk) I count ten.

Jonathan: (taking a deep breath) For example: the words "stunningly beautiful/stunningly beautiful"? By my estimation? That's four words.

Me: Nope, that's two.

Jonathan: Two? But you put slashes between words. That doesn't make it two instead of four...

Me: Yes (here we go) Jonathan. What you don't know about me is I'm an English teacher. And putting a slash between words actually cuts each word in half...makes each word a half word, in a way...

Jonathan: Well, I've never heard of half words.

Me: Well, I have.

Jonathan: Well, my editor says that if you and your friend don't pay us for the extra words? We aren't going to...

Me: Come on, Jonathan. Think for yourself. Who are you going to believe? Me or some editor?

Jonathan: I'm just the middle man here...

Me: Forget it. We aren't paying to put a personal ad in Seven Days! Just drop it. It's fine. Just do it, Jonathan. Just do whatever your little editor tells you to do. What do I care?

Jonathan: OK, so that's your suggestion? Your decision? Drop it?

Me: Drop the ad. It's fine. We can get our own dates. Believe me. We were just doing this for fun, anyway. Besides, we work for non-profits. We can't really afford to throw money away like...

Jonathan: OK, I'll just drop the ad then?

Me: Go ahead. I don't care. Really. Don't feel badly. Just do it (I was a Nike ad, Jonathan was Henry Kissinger.)

Jonathan: Good day, Ms. Fayston.

Me: Good day, Mr. I Can't Think for Myself!

I hung up and immediately phoned Julie. I summed up the conversation and she understood. Easy come, easy go and all that.

Time went by as it sometimes does and Julie phoned me at work.

Julie: Oh my GOD! Did you see our ad? She squealed into her end of the phone.

Me: What ad? I mused, (figuring her non-profit had finally dumped that awful Executive Director)

Julie: THE SEVEN DAYS AD!

Me: WHAAT?

Julie: We not only GOT the ad, we got the BIG ONE!

Me: Just a sec....(I sauntered out into the outer office and practically wrestled a homeless man for section C of the paper. I went back to my desk, closed my door and picked back up the phone.)

Me: Julie! OH MY GOD!

Julie: I thought you said they wouldn't print it?

Me: That's what the guy said...at least that was the decision I got from him...that we owed him...

Julie: Well he must have changed his mind!

Me: Yeah. I can't believe we got the BIG ad. What do you think it was the best one? I mean, they couldn't find a better one? How pathetic is that?

Julie: I know right? (giggle giggle) I gotta go. I have a client. We'll talk later. Bye.

Me: (hanging up) Men! They say one thing they do another. That Jonathan. What the hell?

Men called us alrighty. Men who thought our ad was written by some bi polar woman. Men who thought we were one person with two personalities...or the ying and yang thing.  A few winners thought we were two women looking for a menage et tois.

Finally an architect called and I let Julie "have him" right after he suggested Julie and I flip a coin to see who "got to go out" with him.  He turned out to be tall, handsome, in good shape...but he turned out to be a Republican and no number of half words could turn that into a relationship.

Written in the winter of 2007