Wednesday, May 25, 2016

The Obvious Man of Culture story


                                        The Obvious man of Culture story
                                                                          1982
                                       A true story about how I met my wife Katherine
                                           Written 2/2010 Re-written 5/24/2016
                                                                 Howard Yasgar
   
                                    
In 1982 I had been a bachelor for several years, and I was living in an apartment complex in Miami, called Tahoe springs.
To take up some of my time I went to the Miami Humane Society with my daughter.
They had a cute little hairy black female puppy that they said was called a Schnoodle, it was a combination of a poodle and a schnauzer.
They said the puppy was about 8 months old and had been abandoned, and they had already named the dog Sammy.
I had heard that when picking out a puppy, you should gently pinch it, so it would yelp and run away, then after a few seconds if the puppy returned to you, it meant that it was a forgiving dog and would be a good pet.
I don’t know who said that, but Sammy yelped and ran under a chair and stayed there.
Well I took Sammy anyway, because her big eyes sparkled and her tongue hung out.
I paid the Humane Society to spay her and give her all the shots. A couple of days later I picked up my new buddy Sammy.
I decided that because I had plenty of free time I would train Sammy, and teach her silent hand commands.
So every evening I would work with Sammy, and after several weeks she understood quite a few commands.
Eventually It got to the point that Sammy would walk and follow beside me without a leash.
Then one evening we were taking a walk and Sammy just ran off.
I called for her until late in the evening but to no avail.
I finally returned to my apartment, sadly resigned to the fact that Sammy was gone.
In the morning I had breakfast, and as I was ready to leave for work, I opened the apartment door and there was Sammy huffing away with her tongue hanging out.
Where she went or why, I will never know, but  she never did that again, and she never needed a leash when we went for walks.
One evening there was an advertisement on TV for a new wine called Coconetta.
I was not a big wine drinker but I Liked coconuts, so I went and bought a bottle.
I already knew it was just a junk novelty wine and would probably disappear shortly.
One summer day, I was walking Sammy around the Tahoe Springs apartment complex and I sat down by one of the swimming pools.  
Two women that were sunning there, and they  called my cute little Sammy over to pet her.
I waited a few minutes and I walked over to retrieve my puppy, and that’s when I first met Katherine and her mother JoAnn.
They commented on how nice and well trained Sammy was.
I thanked them, but after that I was a little stumped for words.
I had no idea of what to say to two pretty women, and the only thing I could think of was that I had just bought a bottle of a very cheap wine called Coconetta.  
For some reason the Coconetta wine was all I could think to talk about, so I asked Katherine and her mom if they had ever tried it? and they both said “No”.
That was my cue, I immediately volunteered to go up to my apartment and get the bottle of wine for them to try.
I came back down to the pool with a tray.
On the tray  I had had three wine glasses and the bottle of Coconetta.
Katherine immediately observed that the Coconetta was a white wine, and the three wine glasses I brought were white wine glasses.
So to her it was obvious  that I was a man of culture, a man who knew the difference between white wine and red wine glasses.
What Katherine didn’t know that as a bachelor  I only had four glasses in my whole apartment, and one was a big beer mug that I knew was inappropriate for drinking any kind of wine.
The rest of the story is history.