Glamour Shots

Posted on August 21, 2005 by Nils Parker

This is something short I wrote back in January that somehow didn’t make it into the Archive section during the conversion to this new format. It’s nothing special but it’s worth it (to me at least) to preserve for posterity Thanks to Jay for calling this to my attention

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I sat behind a couple teenage girls on the BART train tonight. One was a rather tall black girl with ratty hair and horrible fashion sense. The other was a freckle-faced, red-haired mulatto with a delicious ass and great lips. They were sitting on one side of a set of seats that faced each other. Across from them was an old white couple–probably in their 60s–returning from dinner in the city. This, in and of itself, is unremarkable until you consider what the young girls were talking about.

The first statement that caught my attention while I was reading was when the mulatto girl asked her friend, “yo, what’s the name of that bookstore down in Jack London Square behind the thee-ate-er? The one wit the coffee shop and all da books?” I swear to god she said those words in that order. The bookstore she was talking about? BARNES & NOBLE!

The reason she was interested in the name was because she was looking to buy some books and magazines to send to her boyfriend. In prison. Unfortunately, MulattoGirl’s friend was of little help. She’d never been there. She’d only been to the thee-ate-er and the TGIFridays across the street. MulattoGirl offered to go with RattyHair this weekend but apparently RattyHair’s boyfriend “doesn’t read books. He just lifts weights.” IN PRISON. I wish I was kidding.

MulattoGirl was cool with not going to that place “wit the coffee shop and all da books” since neither girl knew what “kinda books ‘n shit they allows at Santa Rita Jail.” They had something else to discuss anyway. “Yo,” RattyHair said, “where you wanna get pictures snapped? I’m thinkin’ about dat place on MacArthur across from da check cashin’ place. They cool wit usin props ‘n shit and they give you hella wallets.”

MulattoGirl’s response? “Word. I’ma bring in dat lil bear Ricky gave me after my abortion. He’ll be all about those snaps. Last time I went to see him he said he gonna jerk off hella times to my pictures when I send em”

RattyHair’s response? “Word.”

The look of abject horror on the faces of Ozzie and Harriet across from them was priceless. Once the girls got off the train, I looked back over at them and all they could do was shake their heads in wide-eyed disbelief.

You can never really get inside someone else’s head, but if I had to guess what the old couple were thinking it wouldn’t so much be that people like MulattoGirl and RattyHair actually existed but more that they lacked the wherewithal to avoid loudly discussing their imprisoned boyfriends and aborted pregnancies on crowded public transit.

Old white people are funny.

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Glamour Shots

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