another bar story...

This one starts in a bar, anyway.
Last week I made reference to "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" which I consider to be the only real Thanksgiving movie. Now, I will share with you the only real Thanksgiving story I have to share.

A number of years ago, before my life was better, I spent a quiet Thanksgiving evening with my sister. We had a nice enough time, but when the festivities were done, there was nothing else to do. I think she was going out with friends or something.
Also, everyone else I knew at the time was out of town or otherwise engaged in some way. I had a lot of nothing to do and was looking to kill some time while I made myself tired enough to go to sleep.
Having time and nothing to do often got me in trouble back then.

I went to find a bar in Providence to watch some football with a crazy crowd of people watching football which there was not at all. All the bars were very quiet and very nearly empty. For some reason, I was surprised by this.
I found one with similarly sad, life-lacking people. There was football on the television, so it was good enough.
I bellied up to the bar. At least I think I bellied up. I don't do much upping of any kind toward bars so my bellying technique might have needed some polish. No one seemed to mind.
At the time, my hair was dyed white-blond.
I was drinking soda water and lime while watching a game that nearly held my attention. I felt, more than saw, someone standing next to me and looked over to see a 40-ish woman with hair a similar color to mine own.
She sat at the stool next to me and ordered a white wine. She then made a big show of how she couldn't open her purse to pay for it.
I was feeling the good Thanksgiving vibes we all fall prey to now and again. I said I would pay for her drink and she was very grateful. She sat down and we started to talk.
The first thing we talked about was how we had the same color hair. It was very deep. The conversation, not the color.
She was the kind of person who looked good unless you really looked. When I say good, I mean both in appearance and in value to society.
She had the disturbing habit of looking at Lord Sloth, Overlord of the Seventh Dimension of Hell, who apparently always stood just behind my left shoulder, when she was talking to me.
When I was talking to her, she could hold eye contact for approximately 4 seconds, then she would look at Lord Sloth again.
The conversation quickly lead to deaths in her family, her poor health and the fact that her daughter had not spoken to her in several years.
At one point, I believe she made reference to being Marilyn Monroe's either make-up artist or Doppelgänger.
With my years of experience in mental health, I quickly deduced that she was slightly wonky.
Although she was slightly wonky, and her story doubled back and frequently contradicted itself, there was clearly a deep level of sadness in her and it was clearer that she was very lonely.
Who wants to be wonky AND very lonely on Thanksgiving? I thought it would be good to do something nice for her.
I asked if she had eaten and she said that she had not. I took her to Via Via, which is right off Thayer Street in Providence. This is a great place for pizza. They have lovely, fresh toppings, including nice, whole slices of tomato, which I enjoy.
We ordered us up a pie, with nice, whole slices of tomato, and a couple of Diet Cokes, then sat down.
We continued to speak about her horrible life, until the pizza was complete. As I was being all gallant, I went and fetched the pizza while she sat and continued to placidly sip Diet Coke.
I put the pizza down and she lost her mind. She looked at the pizza and freaked the freak out.
"TOMATOES!!? TOMATOES!!? TOMATOES!!?", she said in a way that caused me to gawk.
She began to grab tomato slices and frisbee them around the room. Slices stuck to the walls and the windows and narrowly missed other patrons.
"Tomatoes.", she said to me in a very reasonable tone.
She then picked up the pizza, walked to the counter and heaved it over at the scared looking fellows behind, while screaming, "My BOYFRIEND does not like TOMATOES on his PIZZA!!"
I was frantically pantomiming the fact that I was not her boyfriend to who ever might care, though no one seemed to.
I somehow corralled her back into my car. Why I did this is a mystery. I could have just bailed, but I felt responsible for her. Bleagh.
We drove away and I asked her where she was staying and that I would bring her there. She said, "Aren't I staying at your house?"

When I stopped silently screaming/laughing, I said, "No. No. No you're not going to my house."
She noticed my daughter's child seat in the backseat and her toys that were thrown around. She asked me if I was a f***ing pedophile and suggested I ignite and visit Lord Sloth in the Seventh Dimension of Hell.
And that was about all the loony I could take for one Thanksgiving. I pulled up to a curb, reached past her, opened her door and said, "Get out."
She started crying again and apologized, but the gallant meter was on E. I stared at her until she got out of the car.
I pulled away and the acceleration of the car slammed the door shut in a way that I thought would be quite dramatic, then immediately felt like a heel.

The moral of this story? Don't ever try be compassionate, ever.