Okay, last time, I had us at the dining venue “The Sawmill.” It was a pleasant enough spot, though I was being just a little bit sullen about the fact that we didn’t quite fit in there. Or, more precisely, I don’t think we were exactly welcome there. Which was quite petty of me. But, heck, petty is something I do well. That and paltry. Petty and Paltry. My two passions in life.
Where was I? Oh, yes, the Sawmill.
We didn’t know it, but we were about to have one additional, odd experience. And this is not in any way the fault or the intention of the management of the Sawmill. And I’m guessing that the situation will have been straightened out long before you read this.
But...here goes.
You’ll recall that I went to get a beer to go along with my dinner. I walked to a local vendor’s shop and got in line. There, I dealt with some more pettiness and sullenness. All the other vendors of the place were very nice. The people I got beer from...weren’t. They weren’t actually rude. But they weren’t exactly charming, either. As I said to Martha later I haven’t had a bartender be that unpleasant with me while asking for my ID since I was eighteen.
But while I was standing in the great long line waiting to get to the bar, I noticed an odd thing. There was a woman in the line ahead of me. She was dressed...or almost dressed...in extremely revealing leather clothing. It was just odd. She got her own drink and left.
Then, as I was walking back to the table, I began to see...how to put this? A number of young women who were similarly dressed...in almost nothing. And they were eying the crowd. Including me. And believe me, as a sixty-something year old dude with a more than Dad Bod, I’m nobody’s idea of a Silver Fox.
Heck. I’m not even an Aluminum Meerkat. (Okay, maybe a tinfoil iguana, but that’s as far as I go.)
And then it struck me...they were looking for customers.
About the pictures: a little different today. First, rather than do photos of the Sawmill on that particular night, I’m going to post an AI generated piece representing one of the young women...the sex workers...I saw there that night. I’m sad to say, this really does look a bit like one of “the girls” I saw. But, if anything, the woman in this picture looks healthier and happier than the real person.
I got back to the table where Martha was and she indicated that she’d seen something of the same crowd. We discussed it. We agreed that it was an incredibly odd place for them to be. Yes, it was full of young men, but they were mostly on dates. They were with women, in other words. And eying the professional talent while you’re trying to impress a girl isn’t exactly standard operating procedure, if you know what I mean.
Our guess was that either they, or their manager (who I think I spotted at one point, a bearded man in an expensive suit) sent them in that night as an experiment. “Let’s see what happens. Think of it as market research.”
I’m also guessing that it wasn’t a successful experiment. We happened to end up chatting with one of the security people who, for some reason, took a shine to us. I think he recognized us as tourists and wanted to talk travel. (“So, if I went to New England, would it be better in the Spring or the Fall?” Answer: Fall. About October.)
Anyway, we were talking, when one of the vendors from one of the restaurants came up and said, “The girls are in here...and they’re driving my customers crazy.” Could he, the vendor asked, sort of ...uh...shoo them away?
“Of course,” the man said, and went to do his duty.
So I’m guessing that when and if you go...and the Sawmill is worth a visit...you’ll not see hide nor hair of them. If nothing else, economics will drive them to other locales. Location...location...location. It’s true for every business.
Anyway...
We finished our dinners and drinks and figured we’d had enough for the day. So we headed out to the car and then returned to the Casita. We watched a little TV and then went to bed.
The next morning, we would arise early. We wouldn’t know it, but we were about to have yet another day that would be a little dissatisfying, at first, and there would be a major disappointment...
But then, after that...
Things would get rather lovely.
More to come.
Second, I have once again taken one of my photos, this one of a huge glass window at the Sawmill, and run it through some filters and Stable Diffusion. I kind of like the effect.
The major difference this time around is that you will see no photo of Martha. That’s because, well, I just didn’t want her photo in the same piece in which I discussed unhappy, unhealthy women. It’s just a thing with me.
Copyright©2024 Michael Jay Tucker
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~mjt
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