The author practicing personal chemistry on thin air
What exactly is personal chemistry, and how much of it do I personally possess? This thought has been weighing on my cerebrum all day, making it assume the dimensions of a Swedish pancake. The cause of all this compressing cogitation is a simple paragraph I happened upon in the Wall Street Journal, to wit:
WASHINGTON—President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will seek to revive troubled U.S.-China trade talks this week, in a test of whether their professed personal chemistry can surmount seemingly intractable differences at the bargaining table.
I have always been fascinated by chemistry, both personal and organic, and so this lead paragraph immediately conjured up a vision wherein the two mighty leaders were at an acid-stained workbench, fiddling with alembics and litmus paper. Which one of these professed master chemists would come to dominate the other, and the world, and just how might they do it? Would Xi pull a fast one, using Diet Coke and Mentos to create a soda geyser that would overawe the local natives? And would Trump be able to top such hocus pocus with something even more impressive, like making a giant borax snowflake with the 20 Mule Team brand and a pipe cleaner? I shuddered to think what the outcome might be if Xi retaliates with dry ice in a flask full of lukewarm water -- the ensuing vigorous bubbling can make the most cynical, hard nosed ruler giggle like a child. Trump might give away the store -- lock, stock, and barrel.
But cooler heads prevailed (I keep several of 'em in my deep freeze for just such emergencies) to wipe away this disturbing fantasy. Surely when the Wall Street Journal refers to the 'personal chemistry' of these two world leaders they are merely using a shopworn cliche to denote their dynamic influence.
I, of all people, should know this -- since I have been trying to use my own personal chemistry on various personages for a month of Sundays. With how much success you will soon find out, if you care to struggle on through the nearly impenetrable jungle of prose that looms ahead . . .
I was smitten with Frieda back in second grade. She had golden curls and a Nordic upturn to her button nose that charmed the socks off me, so I turned on the personal chemistry when around her. But she seemed oblivious to my Errol Flynn manner, as I leaned, insouciant, against the jungle gym and asked her if she'd care to share a grape Pixy Stix with me underneath the monkey bars.
"Buzz off, pinhead!" she snarled in reply. Later on she put a handful of playground gravel in my pudding cup.
In high school I had the dreaded Mr. Patten for algebra. His dark glowering countenance boded ill for anyone as ignorant of coefficients and rational numbers as I. It was bruited about the lunchroom that he took the worst dullards down into the boiler room for 'remedial' math classes -- and that those who were led into those mephitic depths were never heard from again. It was either use my personal chemistry or become furnace fodder.
Eschewing the hackneyed apple on his desk, I began leaving Mickey Spillane paperbacks next to his attendance book. My dad read them voraciously during slack periods at Aarone's Bar and Grill, and when he finished one he'd bring it home and throw it on the coffee table -- where the lurid covers, featuring busty femme fatales in skimpy nightgowns, offended my mother to the point of tossing them into the trash, where I fished them out for Mr. Patten. I figured he wouldn't mind a few coffee grounds for a bookmark.
But as the school year progressed and I fell further and further behind when it came to variables and equations, it was apparent that the adventures of Mike Hammer held little charm for Mr. Patten, and would not save me from a mathematical auto-da-fe.
What DID save me in the end was not my personal chemistry, but my family connections. Turns out that Mr. Patten was fond of bending the elbow.
"You Tork's kid, then?" he asked me gruffly one day, using my dad's nickname.
"Yessir" I quavered. I was guessing the time had come to make out my last will and testament prior to being led in chains down to the oblivion of the boiler room, and that Mr. Patten would take the document to my father over at Aarone's.
Mr. Patten essayed a smile and replied: "Tell him I'll settle up at the end of the week, will ya?"
Sensing a kind providence had suddenly given me the upper hand, I replied nonchalantly that I might do it, if the press of homework didn't drive it completely out of my mind. I won't say I started to receive special treatment from that time forward; it was more like a benign neglect, and I'm happy to report that my final grade in Mr. Patten's algebra class was a solid D. Which was good enough for my parents, who were resigned to the fact that I had a congenital inability to do anything with numerals except stare at them and drool.
Then there's the Burmese lady who lives down the hall from me here in Valley Villas Senior Housing. I know the country is Myanmar now, not Burma, but she hasn't lived there for more than forty years, so I call her Burmese. So sue me.
Anyway. She works full time and makes really good chicken curry, so I considered using my personal chemistry to form a congenial bond with her. When a single man reaches his mid-sixties he yearns for the comfort of someone elses' steady income and zesty cooking. So the last time I made Swedish meatballs (only slightly burnt) I took a big bowl of them, with noodles, to her door.
She responded to my knock with a quizzical look and did not immediately reach for my neighborly offering. Even though I was smiling to beat the band, exuding personal chemistry by the ton.
"Pork in it?" she asked suspiciously.
"Yes, plenty of fresh pork sausage in the meatballs . . . " I began.
"I don't eat pork or beef" she said abruptly, then closed the door before I could say anything else. Well, live and learn, I thought to myself. Next time I'll bring her Betty Crocker fudge brownies.
"No sugar" was her terse response the next time I showed up at her door.
So I forgot about wooing her with food and decided instead to waylay her in the laundry room, which is right outside my apartment door. I would keep a roll of quarters handy, so when she started a load I could offer her change for the dryer -- and from there we'd have a pleasant tete-a-tete so I could begin worming my way into her heart.
I'm still waiting for her to use the laundry room. And I just spent the last of my quarters over at Fresh Market to buy a jalapeno/cheddar cheese bagel this morning.
Maybe it's not personal chemistry I have, but personal magnetism. I notice that lint pills adhere to me quite readily.
Eschewing the hackneyed apple on his desk, I began leaving Mickey Spillane paperbacks next to his attendance book. My dad read them voraciously during slack periods at Aarone's Bar and Grill, and when he finished one he'd bring it home and throw it on the coffee table -- where the lurid covers, featuring busty femme fatales in skimpy nightgowns, offended my mother to the point of tossing them into the trash, where I fished them out for Mr. Patten. I figured he wouldn't mind a few coffee grounds for a bookmark.
But as the school year progressed and I fell further and further behind when it came to variables and equations, it was apparent that the adventures of Mike Hammer held little charm for Mr. Patten, and would not save me from a mathematical auto-da-fe.
What DID save me in the end was not my personal chemistry, but my family connections. Turns out that Mr. Patten was fond of bending the elbow.
"You Tork's kid, then?" he asked me gruffly one day, using my dad's nickname.
"Yessir" I quavered. I was guessing the time had come to make out my last will and testament prior to being led in chains down to the oblivion of the boiler room, and that Mr. Patten would take the document to my father over at Aarone's.
Mr. Patten essayed a smile and replied: "Tell him I'll settle up at the end of the week, will ya?"
Sensing a kind providence had suddenly given me the upper hand, I replied nonchalantly that I might do it, if the press of homework didn't drive it completely out of my mind. I won't say I started to receive special treatment from that time forward; it was more like a benign neglect, and I'm happy to report that my final grade in Mr. Patten's algebra class was a solid D. Which was good enough for my parents, who were resigned to the fact that I had a congenital inability to do anything with numerals except stare at them and drool.
Then there's the Burmese lady who lives down the hall from me here in Valley Villas Senior Housing. I know the country is Myanmar now, not Burma, but she hasn't lived there for more than forty years, so I call her Burmese. So sue me.
Anyway. She works full time and makes really good chicken curry, so I considered using my personal chemistry to form a congenial bond with her. When a single man reaches his mid-sixties he yearns for the comfort of someone elses' steady income and zesty cooking. So the last time I made Swedish meatballs (only slightly burnt) I took a big bowl of them, with noodles, to her door.
She responded to my knock with a quizzical look and did not immediately reach for my neighborly offering. Even though I was smiling to beat the band, exuding personal chemistry by the ton.
"Pork in it?" she asked suspiciously.
"Yes, plenty of fresh pork sausage in the meatballs . . . " I began.
"I don't eat pork or beef" she said abruptly, then closed the door before I could say anything else. Well, live and learn, I thought to myself. Next time I'll bring her Betty Crocker fudge brownies.
"No sugar" was her terse response the next time I showed up at her door.
So I forgot about wooing her with food and decided instead to waylay her in the laundry room, which is right outside my apartment door. I would keep a roll of quarters handy, so when she started a load I could offer her change for the dryer -- and from there we'd have a pleasant tete-a-tete so I could begin worming my way into her heart.
I'm still waiting for her to use the laundry room. And I just spent the last of my quarters over at Fresh Market to buy a jalapeno/cheddar cheese bagel this morning.
Maybe it's not personal chemistry I have, but personal magnetism. I notice that lint pills adhere to me quite readily.
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