buy buy buy, book book book
And now, for something completely different: a hurried update of the last ten days.
P oddly called when I was in Houston for the signings. Folk wisdom says that the more people one lets in from one’s past, the richer life will be. I agree with some of that, but sometimes the dynamic that existed before will continue to exist and that can be awkward. P is as nice as ever, but calls mostly when there is a party in B-town or is visiting his cousin in my area, which is OK. I love my cousins and would visit them if I could. But I still haven’t figured out that grey area of miscellaneous friendship after a failed first act is taken down and the costumes and props relegated to the archives. Perhaps I think too much. He knows now that I’m occupied, which made the end of the jolly conversation a little stilted, but if he really wants to be friends with good intentions, that won’t make much difference. The question remains: would it bring joy to be friends? Is pleasantness as before enough? The jury’s still out.
The Barnes and Nobles event went well. Unlike the one in early summer, this one was attended by walk-ins and friendly strangers abuzz with seasonal generosity, with only a few charity cases who knew one or other of my organisers, out to support a somewhat starving artist (in hiding). I wore my magenta necktie sweater (kind of Prada rip-off, pre-Lee Holloway) with two layers of Indianesque skirts in deep grass green hemmed with fuchsia and printed with scarlet flowers traced in gold. There were fifty copies of my book arranged neatly on an elegant long table. A planter of brilliant pink and red roses graced one corner, right by the basket of yummy Costco brownies (that I didn’t get to sample because by the time the primary tide of people left me some room to breathe, they’d all gone) and canisters of B & N coffee. I was treated to a tall cup of chai and later a slice of mint chocolate cake and perched on the edge of my slightly sweaty chair for five and a half hours. We did good business and the day’s tally of autographed copies was around 30, a little more than I’d hoped for.
By the end of it, I’d almost been drained. Luckily, the later customers were mostly genuinely nice people and it didn’t take much effort to talk to them. I don’t normally like small talk, but this was a very particular kind of situation where there is much good will. Some of the interactions were quite emotional as some stereotypical perceptions of Texans were dismantled through their warmth and grace. I felt fortunate because I hate a hard sell. During the brief PR stint in NYC, I never liked hawking a ware to someone who just didn’t care. If one has a particular product of decent quality, it will have a pool of customer possibility. As long as someone falls within that range, I’m happy to advertise, dance a little more if necessary, but some people respond so naturally and positively that one doesn’t need any vulgar insistence whatsoever while others are so off the mark that it would be a waste of breath and age. That’s not to say I am beastly to anyone who doesn’t buy. Not at all. I don’t blame them if the book is not right for them and certainly don’t take it personally if they think it’s too expensive, too niche, etc. I am also selective as a consumer and understand the value of spending earnings appropriately.
In fact, that’s probably where most of the energy went that long afternoon: maintaining a consistent, healthy cheer at all time no matter who or what walks in the door. The individual conversations with natural customers were easy and even a pleasure. I enjoy talking to good people and doing something personal and specialised for them. There was a lady who bought a book for her 97 year old father in law who recently lost his house and home to a natural disaster and she thought the stories in the book might help him deal with the changes. A sculptor came by and talked to us for a long time about the missing beauty in the increasingly dispassionate world and the importance of aesthetic education. He was an aspiring poet and recited some very long rhymes composed on a thunderous evening in honour of the troops. I suggested he look up Wilfred Owen or Hart Crane.
Even a louder-larger-than-life lady called IH turned out to be positively memorable. L said later she was like a Jewish grandmother trapped in a middle-aged Chinese woman’s body. What a booming, serrated voice! This lady, all afire in a bright red jumper and thick torrent of spastic permed hair, planted herself mightily in front of my desk during a slower spell and announced brashly that she wanted a copy of my humble little volume for a charity auction, but not yet because she needed to get a tax deductible clearance code on it first. Say what???
YEAH, I’VE GOT A BOOK SIGNED BY YAO MING THAT’S GOING TO GET BIG BUCKS AT THE GALA. I DON’T KNOW IF YOUR BOOK WOULD DO OK. Oh, well, do as you please, I thought as I smiled patiently (it was around hour 5 of my vigil). LOOK, DO YOU KNOW ANYBODY FAMOUS? Um, well, not really—here L interjects that we’re friendly with some people in the con—NO, NO, NO THEY WON’T KNOW WHO THAT IS. DO YOU GOT ANY PICTURES OF YOU NEXT TO SOMEBODY BIG, SOMEBODY FAMOUS? LIKE SCHWARZENEGGER?
Oh, god, I thought and shrank back for the first time into the back support of my chair as she leaned in closer, her tightly ringed eyes behind those thick spectacles fixed on my outfit up and down. I didn’t like her manner or the way she seemed to unintentionally, rudely belittle my sister and me. I really didn’t care if she didn’t want to buy the book—oh, she’s starting on that tax deductible thing again…
YEAH, WELL EVEN WITH THE TAX DEDUCTIBLE THING, YOUR BOOK IS STILL TOO EXPENSIVE. NOBODY’S GONNA BUY IT AT THIS PRICE.
What is she asking me? Is she haggling with me at a Barnes and Nobles? I don’t own any of these copies! I’m just here to smile and write in my silver pen (which L couldn’t stand because it was ‘too artsy’. She also didn’t like that I wrote the date in European fashion because she thought it would make the customers mad. Perhaps, but I don’t care. I’d learnt to do it this way and why should I sell out on such a small detail? Didn’t people want eccentricity and whimsicality? That’s what the book is…) I tuned out IH and stared weakly at her name tag and across at her charity gift-wrapping table. L was listening to her and trying to soothe me. I had been making a yellow paper rose out of the extra flyers made for the event and run out of tape. I didn’t want to talk to this lady anymore: I wanted to finish my flower.
…SO IF YOU DON’T GOT ANYBODY FAMOUS TO BRAG ABOUT, I REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW THEY’RE GONNA LIKE THIS BOOK.
Oh? You’re making it sound like we have to dupe them into buying this, as if in itself it were a cheap shell with no intrinsic value, I brooded. It’s not Nabokov, but it’s got pictures and canonical stories according to objective bystanders. I broke down and snapped the last terracotta defenses I’d set up and exhaustion and irritability charged through the lonely outposts of composure and charm: “Well, actually,” I began deadpan and hedged her latest spiral of disappointment over my complete anonymity, “it has always been a secret ambition of mine to be really famous myself.” She blinked at me, not sure whether I was serious. I couldn’t help but smile. She seemed won over for some reason, and calmed despite the cool sarcasm that I rarely unsheathe for such hyperbolic occasions, yet I couldn’t possibly have been prepared for what came next from her boldly accented mouth.
ARE YOU SINGLE? ARE YOU MARRIED?
My eyes would normally have widened enormously, but I was very tired, so I just felt my face stiffen with a mild stun. I heard myself say unhurriedly that actually, I just started seeing someone.
OH YEAH, WHAT’S HE LIKE? He’s Korean and very nice—wait, why am I telling her this? I’VE GOT A GREAT KOREAN GUY FOR YOU!
Now I am truly stunned.
HE’S A CORPORATE LAWYER, VERY SUCCESSFUL. HE WORKS FOR TEXACO—NOW DOESN’T THAT GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF THE KINDA CALIBAH WE’RE TALKIN’ ABOUT HERE?
Goodness, three allergic reactions in a row: corporate feeder, corporate LAWYER, corporate lawyer for an OIL COMPANY. I am a grassroots, independent business supporter who likes judges better than lawyers and who rides her bicycle to school every day. Did IH really see me as someone who’d want to date a CORPORATE LAWYER WHO SLAVES FOR TEXACO? It quickly struck me how different this woman was from anyone I knew in my own family and how lucky I felt not to be related to her.
AND YOU’RE AT SU, RIGHT? THERE’S A BOY THERE FROM OUR SCHOLARSHIP FUND YOU SHOULD MEET. Why, I was about to ask in spite of my social senses, but IH had already barraged on: HE’S GOT SO MUCH MONEY THIS YEAR FROM SCHOLARSHIPS THAT HE HAD TO GIVE ABOUT FIVE THOUSAND BACK. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? Wow, she’s turning this pseudo charity-interview into a dating show? Didn’t I just tell her that I was seeing someone? This conversa—no, monologue, couldn’t get worse, but it did:
YOU KNOW, YOU HAVE TO MARRY SOMEONE WITH MONEY. YOU CAN’T MARRY SOME NOBODY WHO’S POOR. But what if I am a nobody who is poor? Another wasted silent rhetorical question that won’t see the light of day as long as she’s still on her steamroll. MY HUSBAND’S NOT RICH, BUT WE DO OK. OUR PORTFOLIOS AND PROFILES ARE LOOKIN’ PRETTY GOOD. I had to admit, IH continued to shock me even as I was certain she couldn’t possibly top herself. She proceeded to tell me sundry details about their investment prowess I won’t repeat here. YOU KNOW WHAT, I’M GONNA CALL MY HUSBAND AND TELL HIM TO GET HIMSELF OVER HERE poor guy! AND MEET YOU. HE’S GOTTA MEET YOU. What? Why would he want to meet a nobody who’s poor like me? I amused myself with this as she went on.
AND HE SHOULD BRING A CAMERA. THEY NEED TO GET A LOOK AT YOU SO THEY CAN GET MORE EXCITED ABOUT THE BOOK. Great, I was to be auctioned off like virtual cattle based on a bad photo under fluorescent lighting. JACK? HELLO, JACK? She’d flipped open her phone with the other hand astride on her waist. I could barely see past to the front door of the store where some tentative looking women entered and glanced over briefly before ducking to the right.YEAH, GET OVER HERE. THERE’S SOMEBODY I WANT YOU TO MEET. Oh, I hope it’s not too inconvenient, I said, suddenly confident I knew how a dead battery felt if it were sentient. L gives me an encouraging look as IH ends her call and swivels back around, full force. YOU NEED SOMEBODY WITH MONEY, HONEY. MY GENERATION WAS TRAINED DIFFERENTLY, BUT YOURS, YOURS… I feel indignation shoot up within. “Actually,” I found myself saying with neatly controlled diction, “I am rather democratic in my tastes. I don’t mind if they’re not rich if they do well in their field.” And are kind, intelligent, strong, generous, and attractive, etc., but I had a feeling those things wouldn’t matter in this conversation with her. IH looked at me intently and… did she shake her head? Did she smile a little? I don’t recall.
Eventually, she seemed very motivated to help me promote the book and kept remarking to her husband, who was a nice, gentle man wearing not a three-piece suit, but a checkered flannel shirt tucked into light-coloured jeans and an unironic trucker hat, how beautiful was the yellow paper rose I was still piecing together. He smiled kindly at me, having done his duty of taking a photograph of me from the door. I can’t imagine how that picture turned out, since he was standing a loooong ways off, the lighting was nighttime fluorescence by now, and my day’s end exhaustion and growing stiffness at the uncertain arrival of the CLICK must have been painfully apparent. I sold some more books after the shocking interlude and when I finished the paper rose, I gave it to IH, who was vociferously delighted. I’M GONNA PUT IT NEXT TO YOUR BOOK AT THE AUCTION SO THEY CAN SEE. Oh, but it’s for you, I said sincerely. WELL, THEY CAN SEE WHAT ELSE YOU CAN MAKE.
I gave the rose to her not because I wanted to please her, per se, as it was obvious we didn’t really understand each other. I wanted her to have it because she had expressed a lot of interest in that flower. In fact, that may have been one of the key turning points in our meeting. I dimly recalled that in the din of her numerous pronouncements at my weary head, she’d said how she wanted me to teach her to make such a flower. She made flowers out of icing, you see, which made me curious about what she did besides charity work. She went to the back of her counter and fetched a large swan made of thousands of origami-like triangles, made by the hands of some middle-aged Thai ladies. It was a gaudy thing, but clever, and testament to hours of dedicated charity work. She sold it for $15 to a man who walked by and admired its ingenuity of construction. NO GLUE! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? She confided in me that originally, they wanted her to sell it for $30, but she knew better.
When at last hunger overtook me and I could no longer bear to sit in that chair and smile increasingly wanly at well-meaning or not passersby, L and I decided to wrap up the display and go home. She took down the sizable advertising posters for the event and gave one to IH to display beside my book and flower at the gala. The other she was kindly going to send to my aging parents, figuring wisely that every such tidbit helps to buy me some time off their worry-radar. What is our daughter going to do with her life? Is there really a future in such deep studies of old, bygone things?...
P oddly called when I was in Houston for the signings. Folk wisdom says that the more people one lets in from one’s past, the richer life will be. I agree with some of that, but sometimes the dynamic that existed before will continue to exist and that can be awkward. P is as nice as ever, but calls mostly when there is a party in B-town or is visiting his cousin in my area, which is OK. I love my cousins and would visit them if I could. But I still haven’t figured out that grey area of miscellaneous friendship after a failed first act is taken down and the costumes and props relegated to the archives. Perhaps I think too much. He knows now that I’m occupied, which made the end of the jolly conversation a little stilted, but if he really wants to be friends with good intentions, that won’t make much difference. The question remains: would it bring joy to be friends? Is pleasantness as before enough? The jury’s still out.
The Barnes and Nobles event went well. Unlike the one in early summer, this one was attended by walk-ins and friendly strangers abuzz with seasonal generosity, with only a few charity cases who knew one or other of my organisers, out to support a somewhat starving artist (in hiding). I wore my magenta necktie sweater (kind of Prada rip-off, pre-Lee Holloway) with two layers of Indianesque skirts in deep grass green hemmed with fuchsia and printed with scarlet flowers traced in gold. There were fifty copies of my book arranged neatly on an elegant long table. A planter of brilliant pink and red roses graced one corner, right by the basket of yummy Costco brownies (that I didn’t get to sample because by the time the primary tide of people left me some room to breathe, they’d all gone) and canisters of B & N coffee. I was treated to a tall cup of chai and later a slice of mint chocolate cake and perched on the edge of my slightly sweaty chair for five and a half hours. We did good business and the day’s tally of autographed copies was around 30, a little more than I’d hoped for.
By the end of it, I’d almost been drained. Luckily, the later customers were mostly genuinely nice people and it didn’t take much effort to talk to them. I don’t normally like small talk, but this was a very particular kind of situation where there is much good will. Some of the interactions were quite emotional as some stereotypical perceptions of Texans were dismantled through their warmth and grace. I felt fortunate because I hate a hard sell. During the brief PR stint in NYC, I never liked hawking a ware to someone who just didn’t care. If one has a particular product of decent quality, it will have a pool of customer possibility. As long as someone falls within that range, I’m happy to advertise, dance a little more if necessary, but some people respond so naturally and positively that one doesn’t need any vulgar insistence whatsoever while others are so off the mark that it would be a waste of breath and age. That’s not to say I am beastly to anyone who doesn’t buy. Not at all. I don’t blame them if the book is not right for them and certainly don’t take it personally if they think it’s too expensive, too niche, etc. I am also selective as a consumer and understand the value of spending earnings appropriately.
In fact, that’s probably where most of the energy went that long afternoon: maintaining a consistent, healthy cheer at all time no matter who or what walks in the door. The individual conversations with natural customers were easy and even a pleasure. I enjoy talking to good people and doing something personal and specialised for them. There was a lady who bought a book for her 97 year old father in law who recently lost his house and home to a natural disaster and she thought the stories in the book might help him deal with the changes. A sculptor came by and talked to us for a long time about the missing beauty in the increasingly dispassionate world and the importance of aesthetic education. He was an aspiring poet and recited some very long rhymes composed on a thunderous evening in honour of the troops. I suggested he look up Wilfred Owen or Hart Crane.
Even a louder-larger-than-life lady called IH turned out to be positively memorable. L said later she was like a Jewish grandmother trapped in a middle-aged Chinese woman’s body. What a booming, serrated voice! This lady, all afire in a bright red jumper and thick torrent of spastic permed hair, planted herself mightily in front of my desk during a slower spell and announced brashly that she wanted a copy of my humble little volume for a charity auction, but not yet because she needed to get a tax deductible clearance code on it first. Say what???
YEAH, I’VE GOT A BOOK SIGNED BY YAO MING THAT’S GOING TO GET BIG BUCKS AT THE GALA. I DON’T KNOW IF YOUR BOOK WOULD DO OK. Oh, well, do as you please, I thought as I smiled patiently (it was around hour 5 of my vigil). LOOK, DO YOU KNOW ANYBODY FAMOUS? Um, well, not really—here L interjects that we’re friendly with some people in the con—NO, NO, NO THEY WON’T KNOW WHO THAT IS. DO YOU GOT ANY PICTURES OF YOU NEXT TO SOMEBODY BIG, SOMEBODY FAMOUS? LIKE SCHWARZENEGGER?
Oh, god, I thought and shrank back for the first time into the back support of my chair as she leaned in closer, her tightly ringed eyes behind those thick spectacles fixed on my outfit up and down. I didn’t like her manner or the way she seemed to unintentionally, rudely belittle my sister and me. I really didn’t care if she didn’t want to buy the book—oh, she’s starting on that tax deductible thing again…
YEAH, WELL EVEN WITH THE TAX DEDUCTIBLE THING, YOUR BOOK IS STILL TOO EXPENSIVE. NOBODY’S GONNA BUY IT AT THIS PRICE.
What is she asking me? Is she haggling with me at a Barnes and Nobles? I don’t own any of these copies! I’m just here to smile and write in my silver pen (which L couldn’t stand because it was ‘too artsy’. She also didn’t like that I wrote the date in European fashion because she thought it would make the customers mad. Perhaps, but I don’t care. I’d learnt to do it this way and why should I sell out on such a small detail? Didn’t people want eccentricity and whimsicality? That’s what the book is…) I tuned out IH and stared weakly at her name tag and across at her charity gift-wrapping table. L was listening to her and trying to soothe me. I had been making a yellow paper rose out of the extra flyers made for the event and run out of tape. I didn’t want to talk to this lady anymore: I wanted to finish my flower.
…SO IF YOU DON’T GOT ANYBODY FAMOUS TO BRAG ABOUT, I REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW THEY’RE GONNA LIKE THIS BOOK.
Oh? You’re making it sound like we have to dupe them into buying this, as if in itself it were a cheap shell with no intrinsic value, I brooded. It’s not Nabokov, but it’s got pictures and canonical stories according to objective bystanders. I broke down and snapped the last terracotta defenses I’d set up and exhaustion and irritability charged through the lonely outposts of composure and charm: “Well, actually,” I began deadpan and hedged her latest spiral of disappointment over my complete anonymity, “it has always been a secret ambition of mine to be really famous myself.” She blinked at me, not sure whether I was serious. I couldn’t help but smile. She seemed won over for some reason, and calmed despite the cool sarcasm that I rarely unsheathe for such hyperbolic occasions, yet I couldn’t possibly have been prepared for what came next from her boldly accented mouth.
ARE YOU SINGLE? ARE YOU MARRIED?
My eyes would normally have widened enormously, but I was very tired, so I just felt my face stiffen with a mild stun. I heard myself say unhurriedly that actually, I just started seeing someone.
OH YEAH, WHAT’S HE LIKE? He’s Korean and very nice—wait, why am I telling her this? I’VE GOT A GREAT KOREAN GUY FOR YOU!
Now I am truly stunned.
HE’S A CORPORATE LAWYER, VERY SUCCESSFUL. HE WORKS FOR TEXACO—NOW DOESN’T THAT GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF THE KINDA CALIBAH WE’RE TALKIN’ ABOUT HERE?
Goodness, three allergic reactions in a row: corporate feeder, corporate LAWYER, corporate lawyer for an OIL COMPANY. I am a grassroots, independent business supporter who likes judges better than lawyers and who rides her bicycle to school every day. Did IH really see me as someone who’d want to date a CORPORATE LAWYER WHO SLAVES FOR TEXACO? It quickly struck me how different this woman was from anyone I knew in my own family and how lucky I felt not to be related to her.
AND YOU’RE AT SU, RIGHT? THERE’S A BOY THERE FROM OUR SCHOLARSHIP FUND YOU SHOULD MEET. Why, I was about to ask in spite of my social senses, but IH had already barraged on: HE’S GOT SO MUCH MONEY THIS YEAR FROM SCHOLARSHIPS THAT HE HAD TO GIVE ABOUT FIVE THOUSAND BACK. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? Wow, she’s turning this pseudo charity-interview into a dating show? Didn’t I just tell her that I was seeing someone? This conversa—no, monologue, couldn’t get worse, but it did:
YOU KNOW, YOU HAVE TO MARRY SOMEONE WITH MONEY. YOU CAN’T MARRY SOME NOBODY WHO’S POOR. But what if I am a nobody who is poor? Another wasted silent rhetorical question that won’t see the light of day as long as she’s still on her steamroll. MY HUSBAND’S NOT RICH, BUT WE DO OK. OUR PORTFOLIOS AND PROFILES ARE LOOKIN’ PRETTY GOOD. I had to admit, IH continued to shock me even as I was certain she couldn’t possibly top herself. She proceeded to tell me sundry details about their investment prowess I won’t repeat here. YOU KNOW WHAT, I’M GONNA CALL MY HUSBAND AND TELL HIM TO GET HIMSELF OVER HERE poor guy! AND MEET YOU. HE’S GOTTA MEET YOU. What? Why would he want to meet a nobody who’s poor like me? I amused myself with this as she went on.
AND HE SHOULD BRING A CAMERA. THEY NEED TO GET A LOOK AT YOU SO THEY CAN GET MORE EXCITED ABOUT THE BOOK. Great, I was to be auctioned off like virtual cattle based on a bad photo under fluorescent lighting. JACK? HELLO, JACK? She’d flipped open her phone with the other hand astride on her waist. I could barely see past to the front door of the store where some tentative looking women entered and glanced over briefly before ducking to the right.YEAH, GET OVER HERE. THERE’S SOMEBODY I WANT YOU TO MEET. Oh, I hope it’s not too inconvenient, I said, suddenly confident I knew how a dead battery felt if it were sentient. L gives me an encouraging look as IH ends her call and swivels back around, full force. YOU NEED SOMEBODY WITH MONEY, HONEY. MY GENERATION WAS TRAINED DIFFERENTLY, BUT YOURS, YOURS… I feel indignation shoot up within. “Actually,” I found myself saying with neatly controlled diction, “I am rather democratic in my tastes. I don’t mind if they’re not rich if they do well in their field.” And are kind, intelligent, strong, generous, and attractive, etc., but I had a feeling those things wouldn’t matter in this conversation with her. IH looked at me intently and… did she shake her head? Did she smile a little? I don’t recall.
Eventually, she seemed very motivated to help me promote the book and kept remarking to her husband, who was a nice, gentle man wearing not a three-piece suit, but a checkered flannel shirt tucked into light-coloured jeans and an unironic trucker hat, how beautiful was the yellow paper rose I was still piecing together. He smiled kindly at me, having done his duty of taking a photograph of me from the door. I can’t imagine how that picture turned out, since he was standing a loooong ways off, the lighting was nighttime fluorescence by now, and my day’s end exhaustion and growing stiffness at the uncertain arrival of the CLICK must have been painfully apparent. I sold some more books after the shocking interlude and when I finished the paper rose, I gave it to IH, who was vociferously delighted. I’M GONNA PUT IT NEXT TO YOUR BOOK AT THE AUCTION SO THEY CAN SEE. Oh, but it’s for you, I said sincerely. WELL, THEY CAN SEE WHAT ELSE YOU CAN MAKE.
I gave the rose to her not because I wanted to please her, per se, as it was obvious we didn’t really understand each other. I wanted her to have it because she had expressed a lot of interest in that flower. In fact, that may have been one of the key turning points in our meeting. I dimly recalled that in the din of her numerous pronouncements at my weary head, she’d said how she wanted me to teach her to make such a flower. She made flowers out of icing, you see, which made me curious about what she did besides charity work. She went to the back of her counter and fetched a large swan made of thousands of origami-like triangles, made by the hands of some middle-aged Thai ladies. It was a gaudy thing, but clever, and testament to hours of dedicated charity work. She sold it for $15 to a man who walked by and admired its ingenuity of construction. NO GLUE! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? She confided in me that originally, they wanted her to sell it for $30, but she knew better.
When at last hunger overtook me and I could no longer bear to sit in that chair and smile increasingly wanly at well-meaning or not passersby, L and I decided to wrap up the display and go home. She took down the sizable advertising posters for the event and gave one to IH to display beside my book and flower at the gala. The other she was kindly going to send to my aging parents, figuring wisely that every such tidbit helps to buy me some time off their worry-radar. What is our daughter going to do with her life? Is there really a future in such deep studies of old, bygone things?...
posted by greenyew at 11:11 PM
1 Comments:
Oh, L!!! What an encounter. At least you were tactful enough to refrain from shooting off expletives by the dozen (my exceedingly snide, mature and effective solution...). Ha hahaha! Oh, poor woman.
Alternatively, I would've made up something about the boyfriend. It's an excellent diversion that exercises your creative speaking.
'My parents would be opposed to any suitor who is not 100% [carefully chosen rare ethnicity]. In fact, I have been signed up for an arranged marriage [insert details here]. Thank you for your good intentions and I'm sorry about your dire situation with the taxes. Have a nice day.' :smile, smile:
:laughing:
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