(What's a Personal Ad Tease? Click here!)
After Bez broke up with me, I immediately started the hunt for a new girlfriend. I figured the best way to find one was to take out a personal ad in Westword, the alternative weekly in Denver. I was a big fan of the publication and couldn’t wait for the next one to come out. From time to time, I would check out the personal ads because many of them were rather funny. I figured that the women who read Westword would make good candidates for dating.
So I carefully wrote out my personal ad, specifically targeting a certain type of woman. I went down to the Classified Ads office at Westword, filled out the form and paid my money. Up to this point, people who wanted to reply to the personal ads had to write a letter to the box number located at the bottom of the ad. If you wanted to, you could pay an additional amount to have the responses mailed to you. Otherwise, you just had to show up at Westword to collect your replies.
However, the week I chose to run my first ad was the first week Westword set up a 900 number for people to call in and respond to the ads. I guess they saw it as a way to make more money off of one of their most popular features. I was set up with a voice mail box and a password. The person who took my ad told me I could come by the office and pick up my responses. But when I saw my ad in the paper, it looked like women could only respond to my ad using the phone. My ad had a phone icon, but lacked an envelope icon, which would have indicated that my ad could only accept phone messages.
I had recorded my outgoing message and tried to make it different from the ad in the paper. I remember my phone message mentioned something about wondering if my life was a dream and maybe I would wake up and find that I was still a five-year-old boy.
One week went by and I had not received one message. I was rather disappointed, but I couldn’t say I was surprised because I didn’t expect any women to be willing to pay money to leave responses to ads when all they had to do before was stick a letter in the mail for 25 cents.
My ad ran a second week. One night, someone had left a message. It was a woman named Siz and she had called around 10pm. I got home from work around 11pm. I listened to the message several times. She left her phone number and asked me to call her after 11:00, but I couldn’t figure out if she meant AM or PM, so I decided to wait until the next day to call.
One thing they didn’t tell me about the voice mail system was that once you listened to a response and moved on to the next message, you couldn’t go back and listen to that same message again. I’m glad I listened to her message several times before it got deleted.
I called her and talked to her the next day. She was 24 years old and was a single mother. She used to be married, but had gotten divorced and got custody of the child. (I thought I left that kind of early 20s mama drama behind in Clovis. I guess not.) She said she liked what I said about the possiblity that my life was the dream of a little boy. She also told me she enjoyed singing.
I told her I worked at the Mayan theatre. She said she enjoyed going there and wanted to see the film “Valmont.” At this time, I was rehearsing for the episode of “Denver Diner” and the film was on its final week. I told her if she wanted to see it, she should come that Thursday night because that would be the only night we would be showing it on our large screen downstairs. I wouldn't be able to go because I had rehearsal, which was expected to last until after the film had already started.
I had hoped that rehearsal was going to end early that night, but it didn't. I did run by the Mayan, knowing that Siz might possibly be there. I opened to door to the large auditorium hoping to catch a glimpse of Siz, but there were about 40 people inside. I wasn't going to be able to pick her out of the dark room. I went home.
A few nights later, I was working at the concession stand. A woman came up to the person working the front door and asked for me. She was pointed in my direction. She had long, curly black hair and was very attractive. It was Siz. We talked for a little bit. It turned out she was at that show of "Valmont." We didn't talk very long, but she asked me to call her.
I did call her a few times and we had some good conversations on the phone. She told me she was going to enter a talent contest at a local night club. She invited me to come see her perform. It happened to be a night that I wasn't working, so I agreed to go support her.
The nightclub (which I can't remember the name) featured a retro theme, with music mostly from the 50s and 60s. However, there were a lot of people my age there. It was very loud and crowded. They actually had people working for them who would lip-sync to the songs next to the dance floor. I remember an attractive woman wearing a "shot vest" from which she could pour shots out for customers. I remember overhearing someone comment how hot he thought she was. I also ran into the guy I had replaced as DJ at F. Scott's (who in turn had replaced me). We spoke briefly. I saw him and another employee playing air guitar to Bob Segar's "Get Out of Denver."
I found Siz in the middle of the club. She smiled when she saw me. She was trying to find where she could sign up for the contest. After she put her name on the list, she took me to the back of the club and introduced me to this guy she was with. She said he was one of her neighbors. He was in the Air Force (which I also thought I had left behind in Clovis). Since I didn't see the two of them be affectionate toward each other, I just figured they were friends. I spent most of the evening hanging out with Air Force Guy while Siz was getting ready to sing. I made him laugh a couple of times with my comments during the contest.
The contest started. There were maybe seven people who signed up. I only remember two of the others. One sang an Elvis song, but he was also one of the employees who I saw lip-syncing beside the dance floor. He had a lot of energy in his performance and interacted with the crowd. Another was a woman who did "Makin' Whoopee" in the manner of Michelle Pfeiffer in "The Fabulous Baker Boys."
Then Siz went up. She sang Fleetwood Mac's "Rain" to a backing track. (This was back in the day before karaoke became popular in the US.) She did a pretty good job. She could definitely sing, and if they only had that employee perform to make the contest appear more exciting, she really didn't have much competition.
She wound up winning. I think she won $100. I remember one woman coming up to her and telling her how surprised she was that somebody would try to do a song that had been performed by Stevie Nicks, but that she had pulled it off.
Sometime after that, I called Siz up and asked her if she wanted to go out sometime. She said she would have to check and see. She would call me back. The next day, she called me and said that Air Force Guy said he didn't want her going out with me. WHAT? It turned out that Air Force Guy was actually her boyfriend. I don't know how long that had been going on, but I just said "Okay" and got off the phone.
It's a good thing, too, because I started yelling out in frustration after I hung up. I was so angry! If she already had a boyfriend, why did she respond to my personal ad? Did she invite both of us to the nightclub so that we could start a bar brawl over her? And if it was a matter of finding someone to help provide for her and her child, why did she continue talking to me after she found out I was making minimum wage at a movie theatre? (I wasn't Chief of Staff yet.) I could only hope that he was planning to just sleep with her a few times before he got married to someone else.
But I never saw her or talked to her again. I don't even think she bothered to ever come back to the Mayan to see a film while I was working there. Since I don't remember her last name, I have no way of finding out where she is now.
But as it turned out, this was not the only response I got to that personal ad. I'll have more tomorrow.
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