My friend Jim and I were having a few drinks at the Russian hostess bar, when, completely without warning, the notorious Mike Gunslinger strode in and took us completely by surprise. Sporting a cheap Philippine cigar and looking as dapper as ever (having lost quite a few pounds), Mr. Gunslinger, ever the gregarious character, came straight toward me and my Russian partner.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, oh,\u201d I thought, as I braced up for the Gunslinger\u2019s long-awaited payback. You see, only months before, I had seen the old Gunslinger at another saloon, a certain Chinese hostess bar, where I proceeded to have a field day at his expense.<\/p>\n
Exploiting my command of the Chinese language, which I learned from an old girlfriend, I began to ruthlessly cut Mr. Gunslinger down to size, in front of the ladies, while he remained completely helpless and defenseless.<\/p>\n
\u201cDamn it, Charles. What are you telling them about me? Stop it!\u201d Mike Gunslinger pleaded. \u201cPlease stop it. What are you saying about me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWou du peng yu–ta bu shi-huan pyolang niren. Jenda. Ta heng shi-huan nanren!\u201d (Roughly translated: Mike likes boys. No kidding. Really.)<\/p>\n
Female Chinese giggles all around. Mike was upset and vowed revenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharles is \u2018blobnik,\u2019\u201d began Mike. \u201cVery blobnik.\u201d Which I gather conveys about as much as \u201cNalibug\u201d in Tagalog or \u201cSkebe\u201d in Japanese.<\/p>\n
Only the Gunslinger\u2019s ploy didn\u2019t work this time. \u201cNo, no,\u201d protested my Russian friend Yulia, \u201cCharles is a gentleman. I know him long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Mike–who, incidentally, is always quick to remind you that he is \u201cmarried, not buried\u201d (in case you ever forget)–pulls me aside and asks, \u201cYou wanna get anywhere with these beautiful Russian women? I\u2019ll let you in on a little secret.\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cWhat? Do tell. Boy, some of these women are gorgeous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike G.: \u201cThen just tell them about your PC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cMy what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike G.: \u201cYour personal computer. You have an IBM PC, not Apple, right? They hate Apples. In Russia, a PC is a true status symbol, like a Ferrari or a Porshe. Tell them all about your PC and you are guaranteed to score more than Jeff Score. Make sure you clearly specify that you have a PC and not just some junk Apple computer. Trust me, it really makes a big impression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cYulia, you know, I have been wanting to tell you about my PC at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yulia, already starting to laugh: \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cYes, I have this sleek black PC made in Taiwan.It\u2019s a very fast, very good PC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yulia suddenly contorts from uncontrollable laughter.<\/p>\n
(PC, or pee-cee, I later found out, refers to a woman\u2019s private part in Russia.)<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll bury you for this, Mike Gunslinger!<\/p>\n
Strictly a personal view. Charles Reyes Jr. is a regular columnist of Saipan Tribune. Mr. Reyes may be reached at charlesraves@hotmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My friend Jim and I were having a few drinks at the Russian hostess bar, when, completely without warning, the notorious Mike Gunslinger strode in and took us completely by surprise. Sporting a cheap Philippine cigar and looking as dapper as ever (having lost quite a few pounds), Mr. Gunslinger, ever the gregarious character, came straight toward me and my Russian partner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}