I’m sitting in the park watching Jack go through the motions. He’s the self-proclaimed monkey bar master, and I’m his biggest fan. I watch to make sure he lands safely, and I watch to make sure his brain is undamaged as he twirls ever so ungracefully, around a bar mounted just high enough to so some damage to his frontal lobe, and my nervous system. In the distance, I see a father watching his son playing not far from mine. Interesting hat, I say to myself. He has on one of those ski hats with the earflaps and dangling strings. You know, the ones you mostly see girls wearing. Though on this man, it’s arresting. I move in closer to where Jack is playing. The man moves in to talk to Jack, giving him little hints on skillful monkey bar dismounts. Jack doesn’t need any coaching, buts he humors the ski bunny just the same. My obvious relation to his new pupil encourages a light little conversation between parents. His name is Richard, but to me, he’s the guy who’s too cute for his own good, and mine. He fancies me, and I’m interested just the same.

The dimples on this mans cheeks are obviously chiseled out of other women’s broken hearts. I’m not yet on the defensive, but Christ, I know somehow I should be. Too cute to be the real deal I think to my self, yet somehow I dismiss this primal intuition as insecurity, and listen only to his next words. He asks for my phone number, and like a doe looking down the barrel of a really good-looking hunter’s rifle, I oblige him. I surrender and give him my number. That night he calls me. I answer the phone and I wonder why I’m seeing his number on my phone after meeting him only two hours earlier. What ever happened to the three-day-don’t-call-rule to which we women are subjected? The one that men have devised as a way to keep us in a holding pattern and inevitably try to sack us and never call again.

We talk about this and that and he reveals to me his desire to come over and help me finish my glass of wine. He tells me how sexy I am. By this point, disappointment sets in. I had a feeling about this one. I had a feeling that he was a fast mover with one thing on his mind, and it wasn’t to merely help me finish my drink. So, my intuition about this one was dead on. Several elements about this whole thing bothered me, but also validated my sometimes-lost sense of intuition. That I was right about him from the moment we met, was not such a bad thing, I suppose. Wolves are dressed up in sheep’s clothing all the time. We women are taught to be on the lookout for these types of men whether at the playground or the bar. I have found that these deplorable sorts are opportunists by nature and geography and or props, AKA using your son and your role as a father to sack a woman, is neither below them nor outside their repartee. The fact that I was able to spot but still give this man a chance, speaks to my trusting but also leery eye.