PlazaJen: Passion Knit

For the most part, I've always been quite adept at attracting the crazies. There was the candidate for Worst Second Date Ever (the guy who told me the exact date & time he cut his long hair .... I (lightheartedly) said, "Wow, it must have been really memorable!" to which he replied, "It was exactly 24 hours after we put my mother in the ground, and she always wanted me to cut my hair," and then he began to cry. Hell-O, can you say awkward moment?) There was the date where the hobbit-height man called me "Miss" and informed me he could look up all kinds of information about people from just their license plate number (he was in collections.) I am not sure what chemistry within me makes these people interested in me, but perhaps it is that I'm not overly mean, rude, or judgemental, until the crying or the stalking begins.

So, this brings us to Joe. Joe lived on the same floor of the apartment building and was a lonely little feller. About 4'6", Joe was a diminutive man with a habit of working his jaw and making smacking noises. He sort of looked like a frog, with big glasses. But what I noticed about Joe was that he had numbers tatooed on his arm, a survivor of the Nazi death camps. Auschwitz. Another woman in the building wore faded blue numbers on her arm as well, and whenever I saw them in the building, I was sobered out of my own pity party & minor inconveniences, reminded of horrors I never had to live. So, being able to converse with a tennis racket, I quite easily struck up a conversation with Joe, and that led to him becoming COMPLETELY ENAMORED WITH ME. He would come down the hall to visit. But Joe didn't knock, Joe tried the door FIRST. He walked in on James one afternoon, surprising the hell out of Mr.Wo! He invited me down to his apartment. I dragged James with me, because by this time, he was asking for kisses every time he saw me. Big froggy-smack kisses. (I was grateful that my mother had taught me how to turn my cheek quickly, at the last minute, to prevent unwanted liplock.) He appeared surprised when I showed up with JWo. But, he soldiered on. He told us about being a young man in the camps, and how he regained his strength by working in the kitchen at the army base after he was freed. It was amazing, to meet someone who had seen and survived what truly was Hell on Earth. And then he said, in his thick German accent, "So," pointing at James, "This your brudder?" Oh, Joe's hopes, dashed again. Nope, my fiance', sorry Joe!

The last time I spent any time with Joe, he took me to McDonald's for breakfast. He drove, on his INSISTENCE, and don't ever let me ride with 70+ year-old men, ever again, mmmkay? Because he drove as though we were in some kind of Amazing Race competition. And then, when we got to McD's, he insisted on paying. So we sat down, and shortly thereafter, men were coming up and chatting with him. And I realized, I was his ARM CANDY. OMG! He was totally showing off to his Saturday morning breakfast buddies that he still had the MoJoe Magic.

JWo & I got married & moved shortly thereafter, and we still laugh once in a while about Joe, who didn't have appropriate boundaries & must have fancied himself something of a geriatric Lothario, pursuing an engaged woman half his age! He was harmless & it was kind of amusing to be someone's arm candy - at a frickin' McDonald's no less - despite the age difference. A little bit younger & JWo might've gotten a run for his money - except for the fact Joe was slightly crazy. And kissed like a frog.