My first ma’am was actually a “Hey Lady!” but deep inside, I knew it was a ma’am. I just happened to be in the ocean at the time.
I was surfing. Okay, perhaps “surfing” isn’t precisely what I was doing but I had a board and I was in the water and I was squinting. Squinting is a big part of “surfing” as is looking off toward a distant horizon like you’re an oceanic Marlboro Man waiting to harness the waves.
A quick note: waves cannot be harnessed and waves do not wait. Waves are what make surfing so hard. If not for the waves, I would be an excellent surfer.
When the scrawny kid next to me yelled “Hey Lady! Are you gonna take this one or what?” he couldn’t have meant me. I was not “Hey Lady!” material. I was Brian Wilson’s surfer girl, just another dude straddling my board, staying upright and contemplating what to have for lunch.
Mostly I was thinking about lunch: how the salt air would enhance the flavors of the Brie and pear baguette I packed and how milk chocolate eliminates any lingering taste of ocean. And how an ice-cold Corona would hit the spot later, with dinner, and that maybe I would make a Mexican main course but shake things up a little by beginning with an Antipasto.
Let’s face it: when the little turd whizzed past me on his board and hollered “come on Lady!” I was not totally surprised. How many waves had passed while I was building tacos in my mind? (Sounds like some bad AM radio- “Tacos in my Mind?” “Picante Woman?”) A soul surfer would have caught that wave and ridden it all the way in.
Instead I got ma’amed. On the ocean where “Hey Lady!” is the maritime equivalent of ma’am and real surfers eat PB&J mixed with sand for lunch and dinner is what happens between waves.
If imported cheese, cold beer and hot tamales makes me a Lady, so be it. Most of my friends got their ma’ams while on line at the bank, or in the big box store, and not while hanging ten.
haha!
Hey lady, that ain’t you on the surf board.