A Golfing Proposition

I think I was propositioned on the golf course yesterday. But at this moment, I’m still not sure.

To he honest, I have never been very good at picking up signals send by the female of the species. It may have something to do with the fact—that with my severe hearing loss—female voices are generally too high for me to hear; I miss inflections and tones. If we lived in an earlier time when women simply waited for a man to take action, I would not be married—or even have been on very many dates.  My high school girlfriend—we dated for three years and were voted “cutest couple” as seniors (all the cuteness was on her part)—used to laugh that she tried to get me to ask her out for three weeks before she gave up and invited me to a movie. Looking back, I think I can pinpoint a number of times when I completely missed various girls’ signals.

I met Mrs. Golfblogger when the ladies of the church arranged things so we had to sit next to each other at several church socials. Seventeen years later, I am quite convinced that she put them up to it. After a couple of those events, she asked me if I’d like to go play miniature golf with her. We were married six months later.

Yesterday was another one of those days when—hours after the incident—I slapped myself upside the head. Not that I have any interest—Mrs. Golfblogger is more than I probably deserve—but it would be nice to see a train coming before it hits me.

The course was very busy and—playing as a single—I was stuck behind several quartets of retired gentlemen. They were playing from the blues and were appallingly slow. The course was clearly too much for them. Behind me were four ladies of uncertain ages. One was a grey haired grandmother type, two perhaps were my age, and the fourth might have been in her twenties.

While waiting for the retired guys to clear out, the ladies caught up to me several times. The first time, I said “hi” to be polite and told them about the slow foursomes ahead—mostly so they wouldn’t think that I was the problem. They said not to worry about it and enjoy the round.

On the fourth—or was it the fifth or sixth—time they caught up to me, one of the middle-aged women got out of her cart and walked over to mine as I was parked next to the white tees (it was a cart-only course). She was definitely my age, fit, but not thin, handsome and wearing a pink shirt and khaki shorts.

“I think that cart is your lucky number,” she said.

I said something brilliant like “huh?”

She explained. “Its 69 … I think that’s your lucky number.”

I looked over the side. The cart was indeed number 69. I chuckled; that was a funny observation.

“You’re alone,” she said. “I could ride with you if you like.”

“No thanks,” I said. “I like to play alone.”

“You don’t have to play alone,” she said.

I said something about that being ok, and headed up to the tee box, hit my shot and played on. They didn’t catch up to me again.

It was on the ride home, as I was mentally reviewing the round, that the scene replayed itself. And I’m still not sure if I was being propositioned, or if she was just bored and being funny.