"Some Girls Just Don't Get It,"
By Steve Ludwig
I went to Montclair State College (now University) after graduating from North Bergen High School in 1972. My first two years of classes at Montclair were at night, so that I could work full-time during the day to help pay my tuition. Bless my dad and mom (rest her soul); they did the best they could on a plumber's salary to help me pay my way. But it was my tuition, and I certainly needed to do my part.
So my Uncle John (rest his soul, too) got me a job working in the mail room at the company he worked for, Medical Economics (a subsidiary of Litton Publications).
M.E. published medical magazines and books, most notably the Physicians' Desk Reference (PDR). My job was to pack these books and magazines up, put postage on 'em, and bag them for pick-up each day by 4 PM by the mailman, Conrad (a really cool guy with a handlebar mustache).
My mail station was in a section of a huge warehouse-type room where everyone could see each other working.
The women who stuffed the envelopes (which I also posted and mailed) with customers' bills and junk were situated to my left.
The print shop guys, Harold and Bob, were pretty much in front of my station, with their printing press, tons of ink bottles, and even more tons of paper.
Harold and Bob were good guys, hard-working, and about ten years older than I was. Harold looked like a blond Paul McCartney, circa 1965. Bob was a chain-smoking gym rat; he was single, and he liked to party.
Oh yeah, and they were both playful pranksters!
And I, being the new kid in town (at this time I was four months into the job), was the recipient of one of their most successful (and embarrassing, at least to me) pranks...
Twice per year, the company newsletter was delivered to each employee, along with his or her paycheck.
Now the company had two branches, one in Oradell, NJ and the other in Westwood, NJ, about ten minutes from each other. I worked in the Westwood branch.
Each newsletter, which was printed on our own presses by Harold and Bob, featured pictures of new employees. My silly face was one of those pictures in this particular issue.
Two days before payday, Harold walked toward my mail table with a sneak preview.
"Hot off the press," he announced as he handed me a copy. "Pretty good picture of you."
I checked out my mugshot; I looked totally dopey.
"Yeah, right, I look great," was my sarcastic response.
Now I hadn't even started dating my future wife, Sue, yet, and I was "unattached," as they say.
Going to classes at night at Montclair didn't afford me the same opportunities for meeting girls my age that I would have had if I'd been going days. Most of my classmates were older than I, and they had kids and laundry and dishes in the sink waiting for them after class.
I knew this newsletter picture wasn't going to help me win the hearts of any of the company "chicks." But Harold "McCartney" gave me his seal of approval, so I figured maybe I was just being too critical of myself.
He went back to work on the printing press, when Bob mentioned to Harold, loud enough for me to hear, "Hey, did ya see this new girl in Oradell?"
Harold looked at the newsletter's new employees pictures.
"Wow, cute!"
At the word "cute," I stopped stuffing PDR's and looked up -- JUST AS THEY HAD PLANNED IT TO HAPPEN.
In his best faux-spontaneous voice, Harold said, "Steve, check this out!"
I walked to the print shop, already planning my marriage to this new girl.
Harold held out the newsletter, and there was a really pretty blonde, wearing glasses, and her first name was Manon. I had never seen the name "Manon" before; I wondered how it was pronounced.
"How do you say her name - MAY-non, may-NON, Mannon...?"
"I don't know," Harold said, "but you'd better call her and see if she wants to have lunch or something. The rest of the company's gonna get this newsletter in a couple days, and by then it's every man for himself."
Competition! Harold was right. But I was basically a shy guy (still pretty much am), and I definitely was not the kind of guy who just called girls out of nowhere.
"Nah, she's probably going out with somebody," I rationalized. "She's pretty nice-lookin', ya know."
"Suit yourself..." and the two printers resumed printing.
I walked back to my stupid mail, and went back to work, not really concentrating anymore on what I was doing.
Around 3:00 in the afternoon, Bob walked over to me.
In his best buddy-to-buddy tone, he said, "You really should give her a call. What have you got to lose?"
I just shrugged my shoulders, finished out my day's work, and went to my night classes without having called MAY-non, may-NON, Mannon...however the hell you said her name!
Next day at work, the nine o'clock bell rang for us to begin. I was always getting to work just on time, and this day was no exception. This was during my "drinking days," and many times I shuffled into the mail room with my head swollen and pounding from too much hops and barley the night before.
I nodded "Good morning" to the women who were already busy stuffing their envelopes (they loved me and thought I was a sweet, respectful young man), and nodded to Harold and Bob.
Harold put his thumb and pinkie to his ear, as if to say, "Call her today!"
Now Harold was the calmer, more grounded of the two printers. He was married with a kid and another on the way. Bob was the wildman; it seems he was with a different girl every few weeks, and he would've called MAY-non / may-NON / Mannon
before the ink on the newsletter was even dry.
But I felt I could trust Harold's opinion. OK, if he said to call, maybe it was time. And anyway, I figured it would make me appear cooler to these ten-year-older-than-me guys, and they'd accept me into their realm more easily.
I quickly packed a few PDR's to make it look like I'd been working, left them on the mail table, and walked to the print shop.
"I don't know how to pronounce her name, and what if she's got a boyfriend?" Part of me still was looking for a way to get out of it.
Bob piped up (right according to his and Harold's "script"): "I'll call Barbara in Oradell and ask her, if it'd make you feel better." I think Bob may have dated Barbara in the past, but I couldn't be sure. Odds are, he did.
Bob sounded like he was getting annoyed with me, and I wanted to be friends with these guys.
"OK, call Barbara. If everything's OK with everything, I'll call her."
Bob went back into the print office and, as I know now, pretended to call Barbara.
I stood with Harold and waited, Harold paternally staying by my side.
Bob hung up the phone and came out.
"Great news! She's not seeing anybody! You pronounce her name 'Mennoon'; it's some kind of European name."
European! Am I good enough for a European girl??
"Newsletter goes out tomorrow," Harold reminded me.
I looked at the two of them. Something in my eyes prompted Harold to say, "You can use our phone."
I walked into their small office. In my mind I quietly practiced my calmest voice. Hi, may I speak with Mennoon please?
I picked up the phone. This could be the start of a great relationship. I was nervous as hell, but who knows?
The Oradell operator picked up. You were only supposed to make work-related calls using the company phone, so I kept it as generic as possible.
"M.E. / Litton, Oradell," the operator said.
"Hi, may I speak with Mennoon?" Straight and to the point.
"Who, sir?"
"Mennoon."
"Mennoon?"
I gave the operator Manon's last name.
"Oh, MANON!" It seems Barbara, if she would have actually been on the phone, gave Bob the wrong pronunciation. Phonetically, it was MANNIN, with a short a.
"Hold on, please." The operator connected me to my new steady girlfriend's department.
"Hello?" A female voice was on the other end.
Gulp!
"May I speak with Manon?" I looked out to Harold and Bob for encouragement. They both nodded their heads; they were with me. They liked me; they were my buddies, I could tell.
"Hold on, please." I held on. I gave both my friends a thumbs up.
"Hello, who's calling please?" I wondered if this was Manon herself! She had a nice voice. I would definitely like going out with her.
I said something to the effect of, "Uh, this is Steve Ludwig from Westwood."
"Who?"
I repeated it.
"Hold on, please." I held on again.
A very few seconds later the same voice got on the phone: "Manon's not in yet. May I take a message?"
"Sure, please tell her Steve Ludwig from Westwood called."
"OK, thank you."
I hung up.
"What'd she say?" either Harold or Bob asked.
"She wasn't there, but they're gonna have her call me back later."
"Perfect!" Bob said.
All morning long I waited for the call back...Nothin'.
I ate my lunch, always listening for my phone to ring with Manon's return call. I even turned my radio down a little, just in case it was too loud and I'd miss the phone ringing.
At about 1:30 in the afternoon, I started to wonder if the girl whom I spoke to on the phone had forgotten to give Manon the message.
"Think I should call again?" I asked Harold as I walked up to him; Bob wasn't around.
"Definitely."
"Hello, may I speak with Manon?"
We went through the whole "Who's calling, blah, blah, blah, hold on please" ritual again.
Someone in Oradell finally got back on the phone. "Manon's not here right now. May I take a message?"
I felt really dumb, but I managed, "Please tell her Steve Ludwig from Westwood called."
I hung up the phone. Harold, who was leaning in the doorway to his office, listening, said, "Oh shit, that's right! They take a late lunch in Oradell. She's probably out to lunch. Bob took a late lunch to meet Barbara. Shit, that's right! How could I be so stupid?"
Well, that did make me feel a little better.
About thirty minutes later, right on cue, Bob returned from "lunch."
"Did you talk to Manon?" he asked me first thing.
"No, she was out to lunch the same time you were out to lunch with Barbara." I was such a hopeless sucker.
"Well, they're all back now," Bob said. "Give her a call."
I did.
Manon couldn't come to the phone, I was told.
"Last chance tomorrow. The newsletter comes out, and EVERY guy in the company will be calling her." Harold added fuel to the fire.
"OK, first thing in the morning," I said. I had till about 11:00 AM the next day; that's when the paychecks, AND the newsletters, would be given out.
I was all excited driving to work the next morning. Finally, I would speak with Manon.
The 9:00 o'clock work bell rang. I decided to wait till 9:10; don't wanna seem too anxious, right?
9:10. Here goes...
"Good morning. M.E. / Litton, Oradell."
"Good morning." I was so confident. "May I speak with Manon, please?"
"Who's calling?"
She should know by now, but I told her again.
"Please hold."
A voice, whom I'd heard before, answered...angrily.
"Who ARE you?" she nastily wanted to know.
I was sure once I explained that she'd calm down and laugh.
"I'm Steve Ludwig from the Westwood mail room. When you see the newsletter in a couple hours you'll see my picture. I saw your picture in the New Employees section, too, and I wondered if you'd like to have lunch some day to talk about our new jobs."
I looked over at Bob and Harold. They were stifling their laughter; they were so happy for me.
"Why the HELL would my picture be in the newsletter? I've been working here for THREE YEARS! Why the HELL would I go out to lunch with you? I'm a married woman! And I would NEVER go out with a guy that worked in the mail room!! Don't call again!"
And with that she slammed down the phone.
I was totally confused; I'm not too quick on the uptake. I remember one of my first thoughts was they'll have to reprint all the newsletters because they were wrong about her being a new employee.
Then I looked at Harold and Bob's eyes. They had silly grins on their faces. Then I really looked at them...I had been had. They got me, and they got me good.
"Here's the newsletter you'll get with your paycheck," Harold said as he handed it to me. There was no picture of Manon in it. What they showed me a few days before was a bogus, dummy newsletter that they had concocted using Manon's new employee picture from three years ago. The real newsletter just had me and a few other dopes.
Bob hadn't been talking to Barbara on the phone; he hadn't gone to lunch with Barbara. That was just to make it seem more real.
Their perfect prank had worked perfectly on me, their perfect idiot.
Being this is a family blog, I'll spare you the expletives I called them; I will, however, share with you that "sons of bitches" was the nicest thing I called them.
I'll share something else with you. As I was cursing them out in all shades of blue, the three of us were laughing our asses off!
I figured if they went to all this trouble to "get" me, if they took the time to plan it all out, then they must like me.
And I was right. There was never, ever a time in the next three years I worked for M.E. that Harold and Bob didn't have my back. We bowled together, went out drinking together; Harold and his wife even put me on their Christmas card list!
I had passed Harold and Bob's initiation into the "Guy" fraternity of Medical Economics.
Shortly after Manon and I "broke up," I started dating the greatest woman on earth.
Sue and I dated for five years, and then got married in 1980; we've been married ever since.
Oh, and I have something to say to Manon's husband:
"Your wife has a STUPID NAME!!!"
IF YOU ENJOYED READING MY BLOG, WOULD YOU KINDLY CONSIDER BUYING MY FIRST BOOK? IT'S CALLED SEE YOU IN CCU: A LIGHTHEARTED TALE OF MY OPEN-HEART SURGERY. IT'S ONLY $7.99 IF YOU BUY IT DIRECTLY FROM ME ON MY WEBSITE ;
ccubook.com. IT'S ALSO AVAILABLE AT THE OTHER SITES (barnesandnoble.com. amazon.com), BUT NOT FOR $7.99. IT'S ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN eBook.
And hey, hey, my brother Tom's blog is up and running. It's cool. You'll find it at secondgrademinds.wordpress.com.
As always, thanks for all your wonderful support!
-Steve
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