Friday, October 26, 2012

"Excuse me, but I think you dropped your panties . . . "

Well, y'all know how this screwed up life style works.  Legs full of painful bruises or not, eventually I became desperate enough that I went ahead and traveled pretty again. A pair of tights that made things entirely too hot and uncomfortable did at least hide the ugliness on my legs from a casual glance. I figured that anyone that was gonna look hard enough at my legs to see these bruises through the tights was probably gonna deserve a good slapping, so what the heck!


One the way through the Austin airport, I had to walk by two young men who were seated outside of the security check point, and like it or not, I had their full attention as I walked by.

"That's a dude." One of them said to the other, loud enough for me to hear him. He didn't exactly yell it out, but it was clear he didn't care if I heard him or not.
"Nah, I don't think so." Replied his friend to my great amusement. This was a perfect example of what I've always thought and said here - I look just passable enough  that people are not SURE whether I am a cross dresser or not. Of course I'd rather that I was so flawless that I fooled everyone all of the time, but I suppose that I'll accept what I've been given.

This week I was working with a customer in Allentown PA who has two instruments that have been obsolete for about a decade. The instruments were made by a company that my company later bought, and so we acquired it along with them. Almost immediately after we bought them, it was decided that this product was too expensive to produce and support, and there was not enough demand for them, so the entire product line was killed. They trained just one person to work on them before the last one disappeared and that was me! Now the problem is that this device uses a LOT of very fragile components that degrade over time, and we no longer have spares, and so if just about anything goes wrong, the quarter million dollar machine is nothing more than useless junk. For this reason, I told the customer repeatedly that they should not spend their money getting it repaired, and I warned them over and over that there was a significant chance that I would not be able to bring it back into operation. Despite my very blunt warnings and advice, they insisted that it was worth their money to at least try, and so off I went on a mission that I was reasonably sure that I could not succeed at.
One of the reasons that they insisted that it was worth trying for, was because they owned two of these machines and figured that I could probably salvage parts from one to fix the other, and they were partially correct. I did indeed have to pull multiple components from one to put on the other, but in the end, I could not bring either into operation, despite spending two eleven hour work days trying. Being an optical instrument, it relies on several very expensive mirrors that degrade over time, and these components on both systems were in such bad condition that we had to throw in the towel and give up. So, I made a lot of money for my company, but had the horrible feeling of failing and leaving an unhappy customer behind.

Two VERY long days on my feet didn't do my leg condition any good at all, but still I was in a fairly good mood on the way home. I couldn't help myself and  decided to have fun with the waitress at Denny's when she asked if there was anything else that she could get for me.
"Yeah, how about a frontal lobotomy?" I replied with a grin. She broke out with a laugh, but you should have seen the looks on the faces of the people sitting around me when I said that - it was priceless! The shocked looks almost made me loose it. You could almost see their thoughts on their faces.
"Oh my God, did she have a lobotomy?!"
"Holy shit, is that a nut job?! "
"Do you think she she's safe to be around?!"
At that moment, I was pretty sure that this was going to be my best laugh of the day, but I was absolutely wrong. . .

I was sitting toward the front of the plane from Allentown to Atlanta and watching all of the cattle. . . Err. . . I mean people boarding the plane, when I noticed a kind of frumpy and frazzled looking young woman in a blue sweat shirt dragging a wheeled carry on behind her. The problem was, her carry on was wide open and she was leaving a trail of belongings behind her as she traveled down the aisle, blissfully unaware of the trail she was leaving. Much to my surprise, the first item I noticed was a very elaborate and I suspect expensive thong/panties. My first instinct was to pick them up and return them to the young woman, but then I kind of decided I wasn't about to handle some strange woman's panties, and so I reached out to touch her arm.
"Ma'am, I think that you may have lost something that you're gonna miss later." I told her with a grin.
"Oh my god. Thank you so much!" She said, turning to pick them up as her face turned a very dark red. I was still smiling as she took her seat, but not a minute later the peace in the cabin was broken when she starts to yell at a man who was standing in the aisle talking to her.
"Look, I don't give a shit. My ticket says 4D and I'm not about to move!" She was yelling at him.
"But mine also says 4D!" The man replied with an Indian accent.
"Well that's too God damned bad, because I'm already here, and I'm not about to move! There is a whole row of seats here, so you just grab another one!"
As this argument went on, another woman was entering the plane and holding a tube of toothpaste in her hand.
"I think someone dropped this." She said to no one in particular as she made her way into the plane.
I started to laugh and pointed out the loud mouthed and belligerent woman in the sweat shirt to her.
"We'll, I'd be willing to bet that it is hers since she dropped a few other things on her way in." I told her with a grin.
The sweat shirt woman was still  in the midst of yelling at the man that apparently was assigned the same seat that she had, and so the woman with the tooth paste was just a bit put off.
"Are you sure?" She asked me with a look of trepidation on her face.
"Purty sure! The thing is, the OTHER things that she dropped were a bit more. . . . umm . . . personal . . ." I replied with a wink.
As for the seat mix up? Yeah, the loud mouth in the sweatshirt was on the wrong flight, but at least she had the grace to apologize profusely as she exited the plane.
Oh, you'll be glad to know that she managed to keep her panties with her on the way OFF of the plane!
Damn but I love my job . . .

10 comments:

  1. Kim -

    Like you, I want to travel and have no one notice that I'm a biological male. And I'm working to eliminate the tell-tales (such as weight and voice) that are most likely to give me away.

    But you might get a kick out of one incident where I deliberately outed myself.... A while back, one of the ladies at the laundromat I patronize mused that I was a cross dresser, given the sleepwear that was in my laundry bags. (It was a pleasant conversation at the time, and I deflected her thoughts....) Recently, I found out that this lady (unmarried, and young enough to be my daughter) was 4.5 months pregnant. (Don't blame me, I don't rob cradles. ) I knew she needed a laugh. So I told her that she once guessed my secret....

    At this point, she didn't know what to expect. But I had to confirm she was there before picking up my laundry. When I got to the laundromat (en-femme), I walked to the back where she was sitting. At first, she didn't know why some lady was coming to the back - she'd have walked to the front - and 2/3'ds of the way to her, she figured it out - and started to laugh. Later, she told me that she wouldn't have guessed a thing had I not called her beforehand. She said that she needed the laugh - and I made her day!

    The lesson of the day is - being read can be a great experience - when it's under your control....

    BTW - Does your firm sell a machine that does a similar function to the two that your customer hoped you'd be able to fix? Maybe you could be there for the setup of the new products?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Marian, no we dont make anything comparable. This machine bounces infrared off of a semiconductor wafer and then tells you how thick each of the layers you have deposited on that wafer are. There just wasn't a large enough demand for these expensive and fragile instruments, we we got completely out of that field entirely. We still have a machine that uses some of the same technology to analyze gas and tell you what it is composed of, and that is the product that I work on the most these days.

      Delete
  2. I love your blog and I'm so pleased you've got yourself back into flight mode.

    One day I'm going to go for it, but I just don't feel confident I'll pass. I have very light skin and a dark stubble, and it's a real job to hide. Even the very heavy stage paint concealers don't really do the job, and in any case, that would look terrible in daylight.

    I enjoy meeting guys in the privacy of my own flat, but the big outside world is scary place!

    But all in all I very much admire your coolness in getting out there!

    xx

    Melody

    ReplyDelete
  3. Melody -

    Then go to Fantasia Fair, and have a makeover from Hera at Klymaxx... She can tell you what to do for yourself. Of course, I have a bias towards Scarlett (can't remember her last name off hand) who goes there to do makeovers, and towards Jim Bridges (retired, but he did mine at FF) who has been at FF many times.

    Provincetown is an extremely accepting community - and perfect for a person on a first time OUT. I was out beforehand, and FF was my way of meeting like minded souls... So make your plans now!!!!

    M

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kim -

    I knew i forgot to ask something when you first posted this entry....

    Do your legs hurt when you touch them during these flareups? If not, have you considered using Dermablend to help mask the blotchy color of your legs?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_-Iz34dyFo

    (I wish I could find the video of the pretty lady with bigger tattoos - it's a better example of what Dermablend can do with a very visible tattoo.)

    Marian

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think I've seen that video of the woman covering the tattoo myself Marian. :-)

      At the risk of sounding like I am exaggerating, "hurt" doesn't come close to describing the pain when these things are touched. When they are touched I'd rate the pain at about 8 to 9 on a 10 point scale. :-(

      I do appreciate your trying to help :-)

      Delete
    2. Kim -

      No - I wouldn't think you're exaggerating. I occasionally get crippling pain (usually in my back) and it is no fun. Since I don't live in your body, I could not tell whether it was a 3-4 or a 8-9 on the scale, and only posed my idea as a suggestion. Last night, after the better part of the day with Meg, I started getting severe ankle pain on my right side. And I knew that I might have to live with it for a week. These are the things we live with, and are frustrated by. At least we get to live another day.... (And hopefully, that day will bring us less pain....)

      Marian

      Delete
  6. Funny story, Kim! And your legs look great in the tights!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I know what you mean. I recently had my first night out since getting a new wig. I prepared myself as flawless as I could, but reactions were mixed. The 2 ladies at the gas station hardly looked at me, the gal at the Safeway check out maintained eye contact with me with that smile that says "I know, but I'm not saying anything" but treated me ever so kindly, and the waitress at Denny's made me feel like a lady. If only it didn't matter - to me OR to them.

    ReplyDelete