I probably shouldn’t tell this story. All my friends will hate me. No, they both already know.

Recently, I was thinking about the perfect day of my life. I came home from work. My roommate was gone. She was the bartender at a strip club. She had been a stripper herself when she was younger. I’ve known a lot of strippers. I like them. I like how they manage to get men to give them money for nothing. Men are pigs and deserve it.

My roommate was one of those great female friends that I’ve had where there really was no sexual interest on either side. On my side, I’m just not that sexual. On her side, I’m ugly. So she’s off serving beers to the guys, probably getting tips that are bigger than the naked women. And I am all alone.

So I walk down to the video store where the guy there likes me because I’m into the same kind of movies he’s into. And the gal there probably has a crush on me, but I don’t realize it at the time because I’m kind of an idiot. It’s too bad too, because she had really good taste in movies too. After flirting with her a bit, I rented Comfort and Joy, which is still not available on DVD in this country, which is a sin against God and country and pretty much anything else you can name. But this was in the days before DVDs, so I just rented the VHS, which you can still get.

I walk home, because this is Portland, where you can do that kind of thing because things are close by. And on my way, I stopped at a local cafe that was just closing. I buy a bowl of tomato soup (not cream), which came with a big piece of sour dough french bread. And then at home, I watch the movie and eat my soup and bread. And it is wonderful. No. It is perfect.

There have been many other great times in my life. And most of them involved other people. I used to host a lot of dinner and cocktail parties. When I was very naughty, I hosted cocktail parties that had secret cocktail parties inside them. Oh yes, I’ve been around!

But you really can’t beat a little flirting, some nice food, and a Bill Forsyth film. I really can’t imagine ever topping that.