Lou Milner - Confessions of a Woman-mad Madman

Confessions of a

Woman-mad Madman

as told to the author, who promised the guy

she would not change a word,

so here is the confession in its entirety

by Lou Milner

"I probably shouldn't be telling you this but I can't help myself. Once I open my mouth, I must speak. I've tried opening my mouth and not speaking but it causes me to swallow air and burp, and many people have told me speaking is preferable, especially if I've been eating fishsticks. I don't know why, but some people find fishsticks offensive. Anyway, as I understand it, you would like to hear about my experiences with women — oh yes, I am not exaggerating when I say there has been more than one, we're talking w-o-m-e-n.

The first, of course, was my mother, but I've been to therapy for that, so maybe I should talk about a more mature relationship.

I was 38, going through the usual peri-midlife crisis. You know the kind of thing. What am I doing? Where am I going? Why bother getting up? Should I continue to mend this elbow patch or just throw the damn thing out and insert a whole new sleeve? Shit like that. Seemed like life-and-death at the time… 'course I can laugh about it now.

Ha-ha-ha.

Anyway, just when I was at my lowest, an angel entered my life. She was gorgeous. Curves in all the wrong places, if you know what I mean. Face like a rare porcelain figurine. The feathers I could overlook. Although sometimes, after making love, the way she cooed and preened, she seemed more like a squab than an angel. Anyway, the post-coital stuff I could also fail to notice because the coital-coital stuff was fantastic, really fantastic. I can still get an ejection just thinking about it. Anyhow, she was perfection incarnate. Met her at the Sew'n Sew when I was there looking for sleeving material. We both reached for the scissors at the same time and it was love at first slice. Of course she apologized, but really, that should have been a warning that there'd be more bloodshed before the day was out. But, hey, like they say, love is blind, and sometimes deaf, dumb, and messy too. Anyway, we had a bit of a fight right there, in the middle of the store. Feathers were flying, her little wing got broken, my feelings were hurt. Fabrics bolted and ran all over the store. Naturally the cops were called, but they were on coffee and by the time they got to the store we were already at the hospital patching things up. Neither of us wanted to press charges but the store thought it was a good idea. So in the end it was me and Angel against the establishment. It was that courtroom experience that made me decide to become a lawyer.

I really got a kick out of defending myself, and I thought, hey maybe this is my big chance to help other people. You know, like if I enjoy doing it so much maybe I'm the perfect person to help others 'cuz I can relate. Anyway, I couldn't pass the bar exams. Actually, long before that, I couldn't even pass the entrance exams, but it was Angel who chirped up and said she read somewhere that you don't even really have to have a degree to practice law. Anybody can defend anybody, so she stitched up a little petit pointe sign that read "Eric Madman, Defender" and tacked it to our garage door. We waited but nobody came.

Luckily, I didn't give up my day job, as they say, and continued to work out at the gym. I shouldn't have done that, because, unluckily, the guy next to me had a terrible cough. Highly contagious. So infectious in fact, that by the time I got home, I didn't just have a little tickle in my throat, I had full-blown dyslexia. For months after, I couldn't tell whether I was going or coming. It got so bad that Angel finally flew the coop and I was left on my own to muddle through myriad transposed situations.

For example, one bright stormy day when all the cupboards were full of food, I decided it was time to stock up at the Safeway. Now I'd been to Safeway hundreds of times before, but for some reason, on that particular day, I thought it was at the foot of Broadway when in reality, it was at the heel. I was six blocks short of a shoe, and I was just standing there looking around when this woman comes up to me and says, "Can I help? You look dyslexic." Just like that, "You look dyslexic." So by now, I'm older and maturer, and I recognize this as something special. Me and this woman, we're instantly simpatico, if you know what I mean. And it didn't hurt that her name was Hope and she was wearing a yellow parka. Something about parkas in the middle of summer that still make me yearn for colder climes. Well, anyway, that's neither there nor here, but to this day when I see a yellow parka, I think of Safeway. Call me a romantic. Anyhow, it didn't work out. We kept bumping into each other in the kitchen and all she could say was, "Ooops, sorry." I'd say, "You're sorry? Imagine how I feel?" The conversation went forth and back and forth and back like that for ages. We went for counseling but hey, really, by the time you go to a counselor, let's face it, the relationship is over. Right?

Then after Hope, the dyslexia cleared up and I broke out in black spots all over my left pinky, which even the doctor said was highly unusual, but he proselytised that it was possibly the fine-tipped felt pen I clutched like a security blanket. In retrospect, his prognosis was likely accurate because once I lost the pen, the spots gradually faded away.

My next romantic encounter was with a swell gal, very spiritual. Her name was Faith. She told me to trust in her and all would be swell for me, too. Unfortunately, try as I might, I could not. I was an underbeliever and she translated that to mean loser. I don't know if you've ever been called a loser before, but let me tell you, it's very troubling and a hard nomenclature to shake. Fortunately, I couldn't afford a therapist this time, so I was spared the added aggravation of pyschiatrical bankruptcy. And because I was so low on funds, I figured I'd better get through this one quickly. I imagined how much six months of therapy would cost, if I could afford it, and I subtracted that from how much I could actually afford. Then I multiplied that by the total for estimated damages and divided by two. I figured if I paid myself the money instead of paying a shrink, I'd be up by forty-three bucks, so I decided to take the money, go to the bar, and drink my problems away.

Amazingly, this worked. At the bar was the cutest PhD you've ever seen, Dr. Anasstasia Allknowskishuk. She offered to buy me a brew if I'd listen to her problems. Seems she had just broken up with her boyfriend, a former patient, who said he was no longer getting anything from the sessions. He asked her if he could keep the couch anyway, for old time's sake. She said sure, but now she has deep regrets, as it was a rather odd-shaped couch and she's afraid she'll be unable to replace it. I suggested she move her practice to a furniture gallery so her patients can have a choice. And you know what she said? She said, "Don't be ridiculous, nobody calls their clients 'patients' anymore." I said you don't have to get so sore, I was just trying to help. Then she burst into tears and started kissing me all over my neck, face, and rotator cuff. Which was okay except I hadn't finished talking.

Anyway, helping someone else made me forget all about my own troubles and now, I am happy to report, I am living on my own, taking a medical practitioner's course by correspondence, enjoying immensely the time I spend in adult chat rooms, and I am seriously considering growing a beard. Which only goes to prove, you're never too old to try something new and fall in love again. But don't use your real name because some of those cyberchicks are real wackos."

The author apologizes for making such a stupid promise and sincerely regrets the inanity of the alleged confession.