Catch and Release

When religion and lifestyle collide ...

In 1973 I enrolled my son in daycare and started an exciting new job. That’s where I met Sharon. She was built like a pinup, with strawberry blonde hair, full rack, skin-tight clothes and nosebleed-high heels.

She drove a midnight blue Camaro. Black wasn’t good enough - she’d had it specially painted. She was cool as cool can be.

I was honored she took the time to talk to me. We were the same age and rack size, but I felt dowdy and unworthy. I was married to a Jehovah’s Witness elder and I dressed like it. Raised that way, I had obeyed my religion to and past being a virgin on my wedding night.

By the time I met Sharon, the marriage and religion weren’t working. Unfortunately, I was such a cult clone I couldn’t see my way out.

Maybe worldly people would show me the way.

That’s what Jehovah’s Witnesses call them - “worldly”. We weren’t supposed to associate with them because they would lead us down the wrong path.

I guess I was hoping for that. And I got my wish.

Within a year I was out of the marriage and the religion. I was a single mother having the time of her life. The seventies were a free-for-all and I had Sharon and Maria to show me the ropes. Maria was wildest of all, a bisexual nymphomaniac in F-cups.

Sharon went through men like nut creams in a box of Godiva chocolates. If one relationship wasn’t working, she’d date someone else TOO - until she was sure she was safe to blow the old guy off and move in with the new guy. Her marriage to the tae kwan do instructor ended with that level of overlap.

She was fixing up the house she acquired in that divorce when she met Jim. He seemed like a good guy, but she found him a little boring. One night I called and she said she was painting her living room. Said Jim had called and wanted to see her but she blew him off.

I told her she might be giving up her chance at the real thing.

So she started making more time for him. Then one day she decided she had to have him. I think she saw his portfolio - or found his little black book. She went nuts, more insecure with every passing day.

She lost weight, her clothes got flashier and she marketed her sexual prowess in all possible ways. If you got her answering machine, you heard “man eater” by Hall & Oates.

I don’t remember the clincher that nailed the poor bastard. I think they dated others to make each other jealous and he couldn't take it any more. Unfortunately, that whole go-round also destroyed all trust immediately prior to the wedding.

Of course I wanted to throw Minute Rice. Of course I didn't take my role as Maid of Honor seriously. What I wore was up to me so I selected a pale blue prom dress on clearance off a juniors rack.

I would ultimately be pleased with my choice of polyester over natural fabric.

They were married outside, next to a pond. Drinking ensued. Maria seduced a friend’s teenage son, an occupied portajohn was tipped and my tuxedo’d copilot flipped our craft mid-lake during the post-nuptial canoe race. I surfaced with sunglasses intact.

My dress was dry in 10 minutes, but I smelled like bass.

My copilot woke up at home alone in his hot tub. He climbed out and peeled off his tux.

A month after the wedding Sharon called to say she was pregnant. After the birth of the second son, she found Jeezus. She was pure, virginal, transformed and her two buddies were suddenly heinous.

Her stern fake-nailed finger was pointed DIRECTLY at me. Note that the third member of this little group was still a total whore dog. I was simply continuing my path of serial monogamy, the catch and release of dating.

I never did overlap like Sharon did*, never went from one to the other without the customary mourning period of sitcoms and chocolate almond Haagen’dazs.

Still, one day at lunch she looked up at me and said “I’m worried for your mortal soul.” I pretty much told her my soul is nobody’s business but mine. And I warned her that if she kept it up, she would lose a friend.

And she did. I cut off communication, remarried, changed my name and she never found me again.

Until last week when I got a Starbucks Venti 2% Milk Sugar Free Hazelnut latte BUZZ and looked her up on Facebook. There she WUZZ.

I submitted the request to friend; afterwards I saw she posted her profile as ultra-conservative and her tagline was “I LOVE JESUS.”

Oops.

She was DELIGHTED to hear from me, ecstatic, still married with both sons in college. They sound like they're prospering despite the economy.

She said she’d been trying to find me for years and is hoping for a full-scale reunion, all three of us. I wrote back it would be great to see her, but this time it would be an awkward mix - her the conservative Christian, me the liberal Buddhist and Maria … wow, still Maria.

I threw her a caveat. “You DO understand we will not be able to discuss politics, religion or perversion.”

If she can accept that, we'll have enough stories for at least five steamy novels.

I haven’t heard back. I wonder if I will.

The catch and release of friendship ...

* The closest I came was when I dumped the owner of a used car lot for a Republican State Rep who went on to become a senator. In hindsight, that was an even trade.