short story

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Wednesday night, Howard asked Glenn if he wanted to go fishing and girl-watching that weekend at Santa Fe Lake. “We’ll leave Friday morning and return late Sunday night,” he said. Glenn said he had to clean out his garage, so Howard went by himself.

Howard had also planned to lie around the hotel pool, soak up the sun, read a good book, and look at pretty women in their bathing suits. His own apartment didn't have a pool, so whenever he traveled, he always liked to stay at a place with a pool. But when he arrived at the hotel about noon, he saw that there were no pretty girls at the pool. There were no girls at all. There was nobody at the pool, because the pool was empty. It was being repaired all that week. The staff had “forgotten” to tell Howard this little detail.

Howard called Glenn late Friday night.

“How was the fishing?” Glenn asked.

“Didn’t see any, didn’t catch any,” replied Howard.

“Well, did you catch any women?”

“No. And don’t even ask how many beauties I saw at the pool. I didn’t go to any bars. But I did go to a Mongolian all-you-can-eat place and had a good dinner. I think one of the waitresses liked me. She asked me if I wanted extra ketchup.”

“Well, I hope you said yes. Any time a woman asks you if you want extra anything, that’s female code. It means they like you.”

“I said no. There was a whole bottle right in front of me.”

“Well, you blew it. I don’t know when you’re going to learn to pick up on those signals. Next time I’ll go with you and show you all the tricks.”

“If you knew all the tricks, you wouldn’t be divorced three times.”