Don’t Judge a Book

(re-run)

Of all the pick-up lines I’ve ever heard, the best one came yesterday at the Walnut Creek Octoberfest.

“Now those are some sensible shoes.”

Yes, I had on one-inch-heel black booties because I was dressed as a German beer garden maid, and they were the best shoes with white knee socks.

“They’re good for dancing,” I said to the much younger person in front of me.

Much younger person took that as an invitation, and the next thing I knew he was holding out his two hands for me to grab onto.

Why not? It’s almost the last song, and I’ve been dancing solo in the mud for an hour now.

Let’s see what you’ve got, buddy.

I don’t remember the song, but it had a good swing beat, and the guy tried out his every move on me. I kept up, my full skirt and apron flying in the wind as he spun me around, turned, did an overhead thing where we both turned, and so on and so forth.

By the time we were done with the song, I was out of breath.

“You can’t judge a book by its cover,” he said.

“No, you can’t,” I said.

Then he turned and walked away.

Maybe in that three-minute song, he realized he was dancing with his mother, or at least someone his mother’s age. Or maybe he danced with me on a dare, or maybe he needed to just dance one song with one phony fraulein before he went home for the night.

At any rate, I grabbed my girlfriend’s water bottle back at our chairs and sucked it down. That was a workout for me.

I love that my two girlfriends were game to put on their/my German dresses, skirts and aprons and go out in public. They are my kind of crazy. We saw others dressed up, but they were doing the Halloween costume sexy version of German biergarten maids, with much shorter skirts and no knee socks nor sensible shoes. A few drunken guys were in their lederhosen, one of them trying to balance a stack of empty beer glasses while he danced. He dropped one, and it broke in the mud.

By the time we got there, the festival was out of beer, an hour before the music stopped. After the thing ended, the three of us walked two blocks to a Mexican restaurant, because that is what you do on a Sunday night when you are dressed like German women.

You go eat enchiladas.

The musician at Maria Maria got a kick out of us and played to us while we ate our dinner. There were others on the patio in German garb, but we were right up front and singing along to some of his music.

We got home at a reasonable hour, and I sat with my dogs for an hour before I fell into bed, the highlight of my day being the younger goofy looking guy who asked me to dance and gave me a run for my money.

I am one quarter German, after all.

Prost!