Donna Summers playing over the PA, a rainbow of different colored lights, i felt like a goddess. It's never like it was that night anymore. Today's music, nothing but clicks and whistles blasted at high volume, you can't be heard over it, and the drag queens have no class anyway.
	Afterwards, at the bar, i'm scoping out the gentlemen while the bartender fixes me a long island. The guy next to me is cute, and i tell him so. We make some small talk, and i like him, so i tell him he has a nice ass. “So my proctologist tells me.” Then, like a prom dress hitting the floor of a cheap hotel, it hits me. He would probably never realize it unless i told him, but we've met before, many times before. When we were kids my cousin Jeffrey and his brother used to tease me about my big teeth. Now i stop smiling because i don't want him to recognize them. I don't want him to recognize me. I become aware that i'm blushing, beet red probably. My skin feels hot, i'm sure i'm sweating, even though it's an unusually chilly night for Florida.
	I try to make a quick exit. I say i'm going to the little girl's room. I sound ridiculous, so awkward, so embarrassed. “OK John” he says without missing a beat. I'm frozen to the floor. I look down to make sure i'm not on an ice-skating rink. I look back up and he's smiling. He tells me he came to see his brother. I follow his pointing finger to the tall one in the off-white dress.

	It was the summer. They were newlyweds, my mother and father. Not a year into their marriage, they made the decision to become ski bums, so they left their lives behind and moved to Utah. Apparently, Colorado was too cold, and too popular. Probably they were more interested in burning all their bridges to the seedy underworld of Philadelphia and making a new start where they could be alone together. At least that's why i would have left, and i have the sneaking suspicion that they were just like me in those halcyon days. So, immediately they quit their jobs, bought a truck, and hit the road. 
	So they were driving into Utah when they realized that rain was coming in through the roof of the truck. My dad pulled over and found that the air conditioner on the roof of the truck didn't have any support, it was just attached to the sheet metal. The air conditioner was so heavy that the sheet metal had ripped and the huge air conditioner was about to fall on their heads. My father, being the expert mechanic that he still is, made short work of removing it from the roof  along with the aid of Lou, one of their traveling companions and an equally proficient mechanic. 