Richard's Basement

   We all sat in Richard's basement listening to pop music as Richard himmed-and-hawwed over who to bring to the upcoming dance. He was saying something like, "well I could take Sandy, but I don't know how good she is at dancing-"

   "Hey! I'm sitting right here!" Sandy exclaimed, throwing a pillow at him.

Richard took no notice of the pillow or Sandy's outburst and kept rambling on.  We all rolled our eyes, "-Or there's Cindy she's a damn good dancer...but she's blond and I usually go for brunettes-"

  "Usually? Richard, I'm not sure dating two girls and talking speculatively about half our class amounts to usually." I said

  Again ignoring any interruption he continued, "plus she's in calculus and I'm only in Geometry, there's no way I could date someone that much smarter than me"

In the background Nick Lowe was singing, "I love the sound of breaking glass/especially when I'm lonely"  Richard had a singluar gift for talking himself into any choice and straight back out of it again without anyone's assistance.  Some days it was depressing, some days it was frustrating, some days it was endlessly entertaining.  Mostly we put up with Richard's endless monologues because he had the basement and good taste in music.

"-Terry could be a good choice, she's awfully funny, but not quite as cute as Sandy-" Richard blathered

   "We're twins, you cotton-brain!" Sandy and Terry exclaimed together, throwing more things at Richard.  He really didn't have any sense of tact sometimes.

   "Tina! She's a brunette, a great dancer, a regular babe if there ever was one.  I'll ask Tina to the dance then!"

Jeremy scratched his head, "Hey man, Tina graduated last year.  She's off at some state school studying biochemistry or nursing or something."

 "Ahh, that's right.."Richard said a bit dejectedly snapping his fingers, though we could tell he was more excited to keep talking.  Now David Bowie was singing, "Turn and face the Strain/Cha-cha-changes!" on the tape.

"Well there's always Mallorie, she's not bad," he continued babbling, "or then again there's Claire-"

Nick Lowe
Breaking Glass