My Best Friend's Girl

My Best Friend's Girl                          2955

Friday, December 6, 2006-10:12 A.M. CST

I have the best cock-block story of all time.  Wanna hear it?

The names have been changed to protect the innocent, the guilty, and me.  If you ask me, I will not divulge the identities of the persons involved, and if you guess them correctly, I will deny, deny, deny, so don't bother, o.k.?  Just revel in the story and stop being such a fucking busybody.

Some time ago, I was traveling to an engagement with another comic, who asked if he could bring his girlfriend along.  I said yes, because that sort of thing doesn't bother me.  Now, this relationship was fairly new, and my comic friend was trying to make a good impression, so he asked me to try and represent him as best as possible.  He's a decent guy who I've come to know well for the last few years, so I didn't think that was a problem.  The only problem in the equation is that I am a notoriously bad wingman.  I'm already married, so pursuit of women doesn't interest me anymore, nor does the examination of the "rap" that women want to hear.  Consequently, the correct thing to say is never on my lips, and I can't imagine the opportunities that I've capsized in my attempts to help a friend put what he has between his legs between the legs of his intended.  Honestly, I mean well, but I must be socially retarded.  The fact that I'm married is definitely a testament to the patience, kindness and generosity of my wife, who is either the most naive woman in the world, or possessed of the saintly virtue of being able to overlook my copious shortcomings.

So we're in the car, my comic friend, his girlfriend and myself, and we're making the small talk.  Along the way, I mention my father.  His name is Ralph Tetta, the same as mine, and he worked for an envelope manufacturer in Rochester for 38 years in the shipping department, first as a clerk, and then for the remainder of his time there as a supervisor.

I will allow myself a time to indulge in describing my father to you, as it is important to the story.  My father is my hero.  He's made a few mistakes in life, but did wonderfully with what he had to work with.  He's a product of a single mother, having never known his father,and learned from a woman who had just survived the Great Depression, cultivating a tendency towards hard work, savings, and an appreciation of what he had.  Consequently, a lot of what I am is due to what I learned at his knee, such as a propesity to hoard and to be quite niggardly at times when it comes to spending.  But I digress.  My father left school when he was 14 to work and help support my grandmother and the household, which left him little time to be a kid and enjoy his youth.  He worked, and when he wasn't working, he spent his time looking for work.

My father was a manager for most of his life, and well-liked by everyone he worked with.  He was known as a guy who would lend you five bucks until payday if he had it to lend, because he knew that there was a time when he needed to extend his hand, and it was a way to show appreciation for the grace he received.  When I was the General Manager of the Comix Cafe in Rochester, I did the same thing, fronting comics advances and burying the loans in the books until they were paid back (and I collected every dime).  As a comic myself, I always understoond that the road was hard, and wanted to help where I could.  My father shot straight and spoke the truth, and got in trouble more than once for calling someone a lazy S.O.B. or a piece of shit, or whatever epithet seemed appropriate at the time.  He would never wear a shirt and tie to work, because he deemed that the garb of a guy who wouldn't be counted on to roll up his sleeves when the workload got heavy.  Instead, he wore a long shopcoat and bermuda shorts in the summer, which made him look like a flasher.  The point of all this was that when you worked with my father, you didn't forget him.  He was a private man who rarely entertained at the house, but loved the spotlight and loved to joke around.  Work was his method of socialization, and anyone he considered a friend was a work acquaintance.  I am very much the same way.

So I'm in the car with my comic friend and his girlfriend, and I mention my father, and I describe him as a tall, gangly man.  At that moment, the girlfriend declares that she knows him, she worked with him before he retired, but didn't think he was my father because even though he's got the same name as me, I don't share his gangly frame.  I actually inherited my girth from my mother's side of the family, although my father's mother was no slouch.

She starts spitting out intimate details about my father that only someone who worked with him would know, like little jokes he would tell, and how he would buy all the girls in the front office coffee in the morning (coffee was only 15 cents in the shop coffee machine, and my father was a shameless flirt, so it was a low-cost way to get away from the loading platform and whore around).  We're in the car giggling and laughing, and my comic friend is dying inside, like he can't believe this is happening, and I go ahead and call my father in Florida (I owed him a call for the holidays) and he says to put the girl on the phone and they wind up chewing the fat until we went out of cellphone range, and my friend is cursing me out the whole way and threatening to go down to Florida and fight my father with his knuckles.

Can you imagine?  My father retired in 1994, so this cock-block was over 12 years in the making.  I laughed so hard, I almost wet myself in the car.

Bottom line, if you're trying to get laid, do me a favor and leave me out of it.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY