Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

I’m not a big sci-fi fan, but there’s a famous episode of the original Star Trek series from the 60s called “The Man Trap” that speaks to me. In it, the members of the crew land on a desolate planet and encounter a beautiful woman living there alone. Strangely, she looks different to each of the male characters. To Captain Kirk, the creature’s a young blond girl. To another guy: an older, sophisticated brunette. But in reality, the beautiful woman is nothing more than a “Salt Vampire,” a shape-changing creature that tricks men so it can extract the salt out of their bodies–its principal source of nourishment.

How do I look?

At some point or another, everybody has known a Salt Monster–a girl who, despite not outwardly displaying a single one of the traditional indicators of beauty, still got treated as if she was a hot ticket. Overweight, uninteresting, no charm, bad skin, mangled teeth, unfunny, manly back, grating voice, no ass, no tits, generally stupid, annoying laugh, bitchy attitude, manly haircut. Whatever. It didn’t matter. This girl got the attention of both genders, to the befuddlement of a lot of people like me, who were left to wonder if we were seeing the same thing as everybody else. And, to make things worse, all of that undeserved validation inevitably went to her head.

Recently, I’ve been starting to feel like one of the most important females in my life is a little like this: Josephine, my car.

About a dozen times over the past few weeks, I’ve gone out to my (skillfully) street-parked car to find a note on the windshield that looks like this:

Now, to be fair, Josephine doesn’t really deserve to be called a Salt Monster. For one, she’s a beautiful shade of mid-90s teal. She’s charming, well-built, and aging gracefully. Sure, she has some dings and rust, but that’s not surprising at her age (a teenager). She’s loyal and always comes through when I need her. She doesn’t complain, only whining when I turn her steering wheel a little too hard when her belts are cold.

But, all this attention seems a bit excessive for a lady like her. She’s not a classic. She’s not scarce. And she’s definitely not in exceptional condition. She’s blue-collar and functional.

So what’s with all of the unsolicited offers on my car? As an urban, ethnic guy I’m suspicious of all questions and compliments. Is this some sort of car scam I’ve never heard of, or does Josephine have a little Salt Monster in her?

Whatever the case–and for the record–my car is not for sale. The sign goes up tomorrow.

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