When you go on vacation in a tropical place, there are a couple things you hope for, and a couple things you expect. You expect, for instance, to go swimming. If there is a pool you will swim in that; if there is an ocean you will swim in that; If there are both you will swim in both; If you don’t swim in the ocean you are a loser. You also expect there to be sun, and conversely you expect to get a tan. You expect your friends will be jealous when they see you. You expect people will see your tan and say, “Wow, I want to go to wherever you just got back from.”
And then there are the things you hope. You hope, for instance, that it will be sunny all the time. You hope that you will get to go on some kind of excursion—snorkeling, hiking into a pristine, lush, verdant valley—listening to the shrill call of a scarlet macaw amidst the upper canopy of a cloud forest. You hope that everyone you’re with will get along. You hope the food will be good. You hope you don’t get sick. You hope you don’t get too sunburnt, etc. etc. etc.
And if you’re single, you hope that—well–you hope that maybe you meet someone.
Now hold your horses, hold ‘em right there. I don’t want you to get the impression that all I’ve been doing in Maui is sitting around looking for lithe 23 year-olds ladies without rocks on their ring fingers to walk past my pool chair. But the thought has crossed my mind. When you go on vacation, it’s one of the things you always sort of think about, one of the things you hope for. “Whatever,” you tell yourself. “It could happen. I’m not going to bank on it. I’m not going to expect it. But fuck it. I’m 25. I live with my parents. Give me this, Lord.”
At the Resort Quest Ka’anapali shores, there are no lithe 23 year-olds. Or 25 year-olds. Or 26 year-olds. Or 21 year-olds. Or whatever year-olds. If there are, I haven’t seen them. Maybe I’m going to bed too early. Maybe they’re hiding in the garden pool next to the gazebo. Maybe they only come out between 4:50 and 5:00, and they only go to the gift shop. I have no idea. The point is: there are no girls here.
Now, I just lied, because obviously there are girls here. There are really old girls, and there are really young girls. If you like gawking at 12 year-olds or are trying to lasso 67 year-olds that have had one too many Mai Tai for a shot at early retirement, you’ve come to the right place. But the girls that lie more in my age range fall into two categories, neither of them very favorable: 1) Recently married/pregnant/recently pregnant, and 2) Engaged, or in a relationship the seriousness of which will probably lead to engagement, probably sometime on this trip (“Did you see that whale? Honey? Richard, why are you on your knees in the san—Oh my God!”). To illustrate the dearth of available non almost dead or non very young girls, take the scene around the hotel pool where I was just a scant 15 minutes ago. There were probably 50 people in total sitting around the pool. There was one (1) girl that caught my attention—one that I could have seen myself having a conversation with and possibly selling my soul to caress. And she had a ring on her finger the size of a house. The kind of ring that says, “There is someone in my life that loves me very much. This someone also has gross amounts of money, much of which he is wont to spend on me. Do not talk to me. Look all you want, but risk being blinded by this massive stone prism science experiment on my hand.”
So all I’m left with is my imagination, which, luckily, is very active. I sit by the pool and imagine scenarios in which I might meet an available female, and I people watch. Tourist people-watching is usually entertaining, and my favorite part of tourist people-watching is seeing what everyone reads. I take particular interest, of course, in what the attractive females are reading, because I want to see if judging just by their reading material we could be soul mates.
Which brings me to the second part of this blog: How do I judge a girl based on what she reads? (Not how do I do it, morally, like, how do I morally judge a girl I’ve never met based on the book she has in her hands—but WHAT criteria do I use? What are the deal breaker books? What book makes me go, “Fuck, I need to talk to that girl. She probably likes to laugh and she probably likes Elliott Smith AND Kelly Clarkson and she probably wants to have babies. Tonight.” And what makes me go, “Jesus fucking Christ, I would rather rub my quadricep with sandpaper until it is bloody and raw muscle has been exposed before having to spend two seconds talking to that girl.”
I would need a few days to hash out a specific, logical criteria, so I’m just going to provide some examples:
Example #1: Chick Lit
If I’m walking by the pool and see a cute girl reading The Devil Wears Prada, contrary to what you might believe, I will not immediately write her off as a nimrod. If I see her reading, say, Eat Pray Love, however, I will. I know this seems completely ridiculous and counter-intuitive and possibly even stupid, but here’s my logic: The girl that’s reading Eat Pray Love, some of the worst neo-feminist bullshit to be produced in the last few years, probably thinks it’s good. However, there’s a chance—albeit small—that the girl who’s reading The Devil Wears Prada knows it’s ridiculous and knows it’s semi-trashy and anti-intellectual, but doesn’t care because she wants to be entertained, and also because she just sort of loves it. Like what happened to me when I read the book. If she’s reading The Devil Wears Prada, we’re probably not soul mates—but we could be. If she’s reading Eat Pray Love, we’re definitely not soul mates, and most of me hopes she drowns later in the pool.
Example #2: She doesn’t read
This should’ve been example #1 but I forgot I was going to list it (Readers’ note: this is the part of the blog where I sound like I’m trying to be an elitist asshole). Listen, babe. I’ve got nothing against you personally, it’s just that—well—you’re an idiot. I like watching The Hills as much as the next guy, but I like to balance it out with the written word. Faulkner, Tennyson–maybe some Yeats?
Example #3: The low-brow quick read
You’ve seen this girl. She’s reading Clive Cussler’s latest novel, “The Domino Effect” or some stupid title and she’s probably got Cristian Dior sunglasses on that cover 87% of her face. On Facebook The Da Vinci Code is among her favorite books. Now, I have nothing against vacation reads, but when I see them I am skeptical. What would this girl and I talk about? She’s probably the kind of chick that proclaims to LOVE football. “Seriously, I am, like, the biggest Seahawks fan.” Sweetheart, you are not the biggest Seahawks fan. You are a moron. Get back to Clive and hide behind those sunglasses.
Example #4: The high-brow, slow, I’m-smarter-than-you, non-vacation read
This girl is rare, but be careful when you come across her. Don’t get all hot and bothered just because she’s reading Moby Dick or Paradise Lost or the biography of Mao Zedong. Take a closer look. Is that a cute moderately aged girl or is that an older out-of-work librarian? If it actually is a cute moderately aged girl she’s probably out to prove something. She’s probably super self-righteous and she probably won’t appreciate the potty humor you like to mix in with the “intellectual” stuff. She probably doesn’t like to have fun. BUT, she might also be a repressed sex fiend, so investigate more closely if you can. As a test, ask her what she likes to watch on TV. If she replies, “I don’t watch TV,” run like hell. If she replies, “I don’t know, whatever’s on. Gossip Girl?” you’ve found your dream girl.
So those are a few examples of what could later be expounded into a comprehensive criteria, and also some of the stuff that runs (see: crawls) through my brain when I am left to my own devices and next to a pool that may or may not see the visitation of scantily-clad—shit—I mean—girls that are not dressed as warmly as other girls. If you have any problems with the criteria, call my cell phone.
Until next time.
-Wetzler
Friday on Where’s Wetzler?: Photos!
This entry was written by , posted on February 4, 2009 at 10:19 pm, filed under Uncategorized, the boot and tagged clive cussler, dan brown, hotties, lithe, mai tai, scantily-clad. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.