MV---Part Dos (Gaydar Malfunction)

Saturday morning we walked to town to explore the stores. One famous place is The Black Dog. There are numerous stores all over the island, and if you've ever been to The Vineyard, it is a requirement that you buy their crap.

If you observe people on the island carefully, anyone wearing a sweatshirt will have a black lab on the front of it.

Jeff and I walk into the store and begin perusing the rows of long sleeved t-shirts, short sleeved t-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, regular sweatshirt, hats, windbreakers, flip flops, dog bowls, dog biscuits, leashes, collars, mugs, playing cards, basically tons of other crap you can stick a dog on.

As we're looking at a shelf full of sweatshirts, a man walks right in front of us, asks how we're doing (we say we're doing fine) and pretends to fix a perfectly stacked pile of sweatshirts, and then continues past us.

Weird, but we think nothing of it seconds later. If this were a book, that little scene would be called foreshadowing.

After pulling down a cornucopia of clothing for the two of us, the kids, and my mom and Jeff's dad (who were back home being run ragged by the kids), we take our armload to the counter and the man who fixed the perfectly stacked pile of sweatshirts walks over to ring us in.

Before I continue, let me just say that Jeff is a very handsome man...strong jawline, blond, All-American, lost a shitload of weight and now looks like when I met him. People can't believe he'll be 40 next May....they think he's in his late 20's. (note to Kerri, Julia, Nicole, and Lyrehca...he looks nothing like when you all saw him...you wouldn't recognize him). We've gone to Provincetown, Cape Cod several times and anytime we've gone to a bar, Jeff is the one who goes up to get us drinks, because whoever is tending the bar is inevitably gay.

So anyway, we're standing there minding our own business when I notice the guy looking Jeff up and down. He starts at his stomach, his eyes roll up Jeff's torso and finally rest upon Jeff's face. This happens over and over as he rings in every other piece of clothing. He was so obvious about his gawking. I thought "this guy is gay and he's hot for Jeff!"

I looked over at Jeff to see if there was any indication that he noticed this blatant show of attraction, but he seemed oblivious to it. Then I thought "I have to tell Jeff that this guy was hot for him and that he was looking him up and down...didn't he notice?"

The guy was all fumbles...can't find a bag to put the stuff in, shaky hands trying to locate a free canvas bag because we bought x amount of merchandise. He explains why he's all fumbles...it's because he manages a Black Dog store on the mainland and is here for the day and isn't familiar with where everything is located.

I'm thinking, this guy is all fumbles and jumbles because can't contain himself and is all nervous because he's hot for Jeff.

He finishes ringing us up, and no sooner do we take two steps out of the store than Jeff says to me "Was that guy gay, and was he checking me out?"

"Oh my God!, I was totally waiting to tell you that!", I say incredulously. "I didn't think you noticed."

"Oh yeah, I noticed. Do I look gay?"

"Well", I say, "you have a refined look about you. You're handsome, and neat looking, so I guess you look attractive to a gay man. Don't worry, the guy was just having a gaydar malfunction."

"I can't believe he was so obvious about it."

Flash forward to later that evening as we're walking along a dock looking for a restaurant:

"Shannon, have you noticed any girls looking at me since we've been here?"

"No, I really didn't notice."

"I need a girl to look at me to counteract the visual assault that occured earlier."

A girl walks by and I didn't make note of whether or not she looked at him.

"OK, that girl just looked at me. It was quick, but she definitely looked at me. I guess she saw you with me and didn't want to offend you so she wasn't so obvious about it."

"You feel better now?"

"Yeah, a little."

To be continued.....