Privet Parts

Terry WetWet wants to connect with me.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I find a lot of these messages when I look through the old junk email bag in search of the web’s least wanted.

“I have updated my fuckbook page with new photos,” she wrote. “Check it out and tell me what you think.”

Fuckbook? I never heard of it, but if they’re having an IPO anytime soon I want in.

But I didn’t check out the new photos and I don’t think I will. I’d rather not get involved with someone named Terry Wetwet and I really don’t want to make Georgia jealous.

Georgia also wrote to me recently, starting off with a hearty cry of “Privet, my dear friend!”

Privet means “hello” in Russian, but it can also refer to a European shrub called Ligustrum vulgare and after reading Georgia’s e-mail I’m still not sure which one she means.

“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody,” she wrote, “you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. This twenty-first century letter is for my twentieth century soul.”

A Twentieth Century soul? I think my soul is somewhere back in the Middle Ages. And it’s probably better off.

“In my imagination you are just perfect and I am dreaming about you all days and nights.”

I may be perfect in your imagination, lady, but you might change your mind if you ever met me. You just keep dreaming about me all days and nights in your Twentieth Century soul while I deal with Theresa.

Theresa—I don’t think she goes by “Terry”—is a another privet person who starts her email with the same exact greeting as Georgia—“Privet, my dear friend!” Perhaps they’re related. But then Theresa had better lines than Georgia.

I Write the Songs

“Love is a friendship set to music,” she writes. “I yearn for you so, my dear. Sometimes I do not know how I will get through another night alone. All I can do is to imagine how kind your voice is, how deep your eyes are, and how strong your arms are. They will comfort me like an angel’s wings.”

Wow. I actually like the line about love being friendship set to music. I wish I could set that email to music. I’d have a top ten hit. And just imagine the video.

I hope she can get through another night alone. And perhaps in another life I could’ve taken Theresa in my strong arms and comforted her with my angel’s wings, but now I’ve got to handle Narciss.

Narciss is from Poland and she starts off her email by saying that she got my email, which is odd because if I had written to somebody named Narciss I think I’d remember it. That’s a pretty distinctive name--like Terry Wetwet.

“I think we will find common language and interests,” Narciss wrote. “New emotions and a positive always wanted to communicate to men from the friend of the countries after all it so fascinatingly, so much.”

New emotions and a positive…what, exactly? Attitude? Electric charge? Why won’t she say? This email is giving me a migraine with the men from the friend of the countries—oh, Narciss, what the hell are you talking about?

Narciss ends by saying she’s moving to America for work. Hopefully she won’t be teaching English.

And then there’s Justina seeking true friendship and a partner and a “22 y/o female new around town” who got my attention by opening up with “Howdy, Beautiful” which puts privet out to pasture.

This very young lady “absolutely thought you were stunning in those pics on your profile,” and then called me “babe.”

I tell you, with all these women in my life, I’m so glad I got the email reading “Be the Pied Piper of Chicks enlarge your pink just by popping a pill.”

My pink? I didn’t know I had a pink. I thought I had a blue. I wonder if the pink is anywhere near my Ligustrum vulgare. I’ll have to take a peek to make sure it’s in the pink so I can be a proper Pied Piper. (Jesus, I’m starting to sound like Narciss…)

And I wonder if I enlarge my pink will it hurt my privet? That would be a bitter pill to pop.