I’m a soft touch when it comes to causes. La Raymunda gives me a bad time, saying that every Little Leaguer selling magazines to buy uniforms, every Boy Scout selling mulch to pay for Jamboree, and every Girl Scout selling crack Thin Mints, Samoas and Tagalongs knows they won’t leave our porch empty-handed. (I think they’re leaving secret marks on my mailbox like hobos used to do during the Depression: “Sucker lives here.”) So when a beautiful olive-skinned sixteen year old girl approached me on Saturday while I was out mowing the lawn I knew I was in trouble.

As an aside, the last time I was approached like this I bought a forty dollar book of discount coupons from a hot Asian girl in her early twenties. She was dressed in tight jeans and a tank top with long black hair flowing over her shoulders and big slow-blinking eyes. I never had a chance. “Just sign here sir.” “Yes, ma’am.”

But I digress.

The girl who walked into our yard on Saturday was setting up appointments for a vinyl siding contractor. She was gorgeous. Like whuff! sucker-punch in the solar plexus gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that just aches. Long brown hair, flawless olive skin, eyes the color of caramel. Just perfect. (”Yahtzee!” shouted God.) She was charming and smiled a lot, too. I was going to have to be careful.

Now we don’t need new vinyl siding – we just had the house wrapped five years ago. So I wasn’t going to buy anything or sign-up for any estimates. I knew that already. But standing there looking at this girl I thought that perhaps I would let her go through her entire schpiel a couple of times, you know - play along like I’m interested and ask a lot of questions - so I could stand there and look at her, hopefully without embarrassing myself by drooling on the lawn mower.

She began her pitch; I queued my inner-monologue:

She’s barely one-third your age.
Yes, but look at her. Madre de Dios! In some cultures, like the stone age Indians of the Amazon (and France), she’s the perfect marrying age!
In this culture she’s the perfect age to get you handcuffed and thrown into a locked cell with your new best friend SpongeBob Leatherpants. And you’ll get your own gold star on the Loudoun County Pervert Locator map, too.

You’re married already.
Yes, but in some cultures, like France, keeping a mistress is not only allowed – it’s encouraged. Infidelity is a cause for celebration!
Try that argument with La Raymunda and she will open a can of whoop-ass on you that will be heard on Mars.

You look like ass.
Yes, but in some cultures, like France, young unbelievably hot women are attracted to sweaty, slightly-overweight forty year old men out mowing the lawn with grass and dirt stuck to their faces!
You sir, are retarded.

There was nothing to do, of course, but tell her that I wasn’t interested and let her go on to my neighbor’s house. As she walked away I admit I thought of chasing her down and popping an extra-large heavy-duty leaf bag over her head, throwing her in the trunk and driving away but decided ultimately it was an ill-conceived plan with negative long-term ramifications. So instead I made Big Wince Face, pulled the cord on the mower and finished up the lawn on the north side of the house.