A Scale of One to Ten - #1

I walked into Dairy Mart with a twenty dollar bill that was about to be broken by a large coffee, a cherry turnover, and fifteen bucks worth of gas that didn’t even fill my truck halfway up. I doctored my coffee and took it and my turnover to the counter, smiled politely at the checkout girl. I assessed her in a little less than two seconds and quickly came to the conclusion that the girl was a 6, maybe a 6.5 if she fixed herself up. Her ass was too wide for the slacks she was wearing and the standard issue Dairy Mart golf shirt didn’t do her chest any favors, but if I saw her at a bar and it was last call, she would do.


“You want any scratch-offs or pick threes today?” she asked, oblivious to me and my evaluation.

“Nah, I’m good,” I said. “I’ve got too many millions to deal with as it is.”

The checkout girl laughed sardonically as she rang up my goodies, but was looking past me when she took my twenty.

“I was also on pump three,” I said, barely catching her before she finished punching keys on the cash register. She looked slightly annoyed at my late information, but kept looking past me as if I were opaque and bothersome. The girl gave me my change and thanked me in a monotone as she closed the register. I stuffed the meager remnants of the twenty into my front pocket and swiped up my breakfast, mumbled a thank you in the girl’s general direction. As I went out the door I heard the girl starting a conversation with someone local, an actual live exchange of dialogue, and I couldn’t help but be a little jealous. Here I was, a decent enough guy; young, not bad looking, fairly articulate, good job, and yet I couldn’t garner a second glance from a checkout girl that I wasn’t really interested in anyway.

I got to the office twenty minutes early like I do every morning and started banging away at my keyboard as soon as I had refilled my coffee. Every few minutes, another one of my cubicle brothers or sisters walks past me and gives me a fake-friendly smile or a short wave and then they make their way to their own keyboards and cups of coffee. Within an hour they are weaving between each others’ cubicles, sharing information about what happened over the weekend or the latest gossip about who pissed who off and that we’re all getting downsized, it’s only a matter of time.

There are four women in the office and I’ll itemize them here for you exactly the way I see them. I admit that my scale is subject to my own unique tastes, but my evaluations are thorough and for the most part accurate. Let’s go in reverse order.


4. Mona. (4.3) Mona is a pig, flat out. She’s got short, thin black hair that’s cut in a bob and does nothing to hide her flabbering jowls and triple chin. The skin on the back of Mona’s arms swings loosely like soft dough and she wears so much perfume that you can almost taste her when she walks past. I never think of Mona while I masturbate, ... well, there was this one time when I was drunk on a Sunday, but it was just a pretend blowjob and I felt really bad afterwards. That’s one of many weird things about guys. We’ll beat off to a girl that we wouldn’t even talk to in real life. Disgusting.

3. Theresa (5.74) Yeah, I know I’m throwing some odd numbers out, but this is a complex system that has taken years to perfect. Theresa would be a little higher if she didn’t wear so much makeup and was maybe a little taller. She’s one of those chubby girls that you can’t help but feel sorry for because no matter how much weight she gains in her ass, her breasts will still be wide and flat and unappealing. Theresa laughs a lot, though, and she has a sly smile that tells me that she could possibly be a little freaky in the sack. She’s a regular in my fantasy stable of women because she’s very flirty and the imaginary scenarios I concoct are almost believable with her in them.

2. Monica (6.4) Monica has the opposite problem of the first two because she’s thin, almost too thin. But her legs are nice and long and over the Christmas holiday she had a boob job, delighting me and every other guy in the office. Monica’s number would shoot up at least a half a point if she would just do something with her hair. She isn’t very friendly, either, although personality rarely has much of an impact on my rating system. It’s not like I’m trying to marry the women I’m evaluating.

1. Renee (8.67) Butt? Bam, she’s got it. Ditto on the breasts and the face. Renee’s a little unique because she’s the only black girl in our office, but you wouldn’t know it by the way she talks or carries herself. It’s funny to watch the surprise on a customer’s face when they come into the office for the first time and finally see Renee after talking to her on the phone for months. She’s friendly too, but she’s a climber, and I don’t expect I’ll be seeing Renee around the cubicle catacombs much longer. She may even become my direct supervisor one of these years, which would make for a different fantasy altogether.

And what do these varying degrees of women think of me, my grading of them, my sexist and impersonal categorizations? Nothing, that’s what they think, because they have no idea. If you were to ask any or all of them, they would probably say that I was a nice and quiet guy who is a good co-worker, and they wouldn’t be wrong, not exactly. I am nice and good and whatever other effete and vacuous adjective you can come up with on short notice. My looks never turn into stares and my conversations rarely involve the risque or taboo. I get my work done on time and for me, that’s enough.

It’s not like we don’t all evaluate people within seconds of meeting them, it’s just that my system of doing so is elaborate and thorough enough to be offensive. Most men have at least a rudimentary grading system of at least three levels. The first level is the women that they wouldn’t have sex with. Poof, gone, let’s speak of this level no more.

The second level is the women that guys would have sex with, but wouldn’t want to encounter under any other circumstances. Within this group are the women whose voices are squeaky or who drink too much Jaigermeister on a Tuesday night or think that Hello Kitty notebooks are still cute past the age of twenty-five. The kind of girl who will never meet your parents, unless by accident.

Level Three may seem on the surface to be nirvana, that place where compatibility meets desire, but upon review I have concluded that this level is also a sham. This level is where one finds a wife, that woman who, with the help of Xanax or Vicodin, can raise your kids and keep the house clean and have dinner fixed and have sex with you often enough to keep the pipes from rusting. This is where the afterlife really begins, where men are consigned to wander dumbly through a purgatory of self-help books, Saturday morning soccer, and games of Scrabble and Jenga with other numb couples, engaging in inane conversations about landscaping or closet space management that would make you puke if you were still alive, if you still cared. Then eventually, if you make it through all that crap, you get to retire a broken and .....

Sorry about that. I don’t mean to be such a cynical prick, but when you’re simply an observer, when you’re on the sidelines, it’s easy to become jaded. Okay, back to this day I was talking about, the one with the turnover and the coffee, which really could be any day at all.

After work, I meandered into a lonely watering hole two streets over where I went whenever I wanted to be sure not to see anyone from work, which was most of the time. I slid up to the bar and ordered a Bass with a shot of Maker’s Mark, the same way I always started. I felt sad that the bartender didn’t say something like, “hey, how’s it goin’? you want the usual?”, but he ignored me until I flagged him down and even then I felt like a nuisance, like I was an intruder in someone else’s story. I nailed the shot of Maker’s and chased the burn with the icy beer, waited for the warm haze to soothe my feelings of inadequacy. Was it my fault that I didn’t have anything interesting to say? Could I help it if standing around and looking absentmindedly cheerful was the only gift I had? I brooded over this for some time with my belly to the bar and two more beers and one more shot of bourbon did nothing to clear the melancholy that threatened to suffocate me. I finally spun on my stool and hopped off to go to the restroom, anything to break my infinite string of useless thoughts.

On the way back to my stool, I saw a guy I had met at the same bar a few weeks earlier. Unfortunately, the guy saw me too, and his face immediately lit up with recognition. The guy was a good ten to fifteen years older than me, hunched over his table with trickles of sweat lining his fat, reddened face. The guy stuck his monstrous paw out to me and I shook it and smiled, just as I had been trained my whole life to do.

“How the hell are you?” the guy said. When I pulled my hand back I had to resist the urge to wipe it on the side of my pants. I strained to keep my grin.

“Good. I’m good. How’ve you been?”

“I’m alright. Just trying to maintain.”

“It’s Jerry, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m surprised you remember me. We were both pretty tore up the last time I saw you in here.”

I had been fairly hammered when I had last crossed paths with Jerry, but I could remember the evening quite well. Jerry was one of the few people I had shared evaluations with. It had been a Thursday, Karaoke Night, and I regaled Jerry with my incessant railings on women and my scale of one to ten. I had even shared a new variation of the scale I was tinkering with, one that gauged the number of beers it would require for me to sleep with a woman or how many drinks she might imbibe until I could get her to sleep with me.

I could tell that the guy, Jerry, had little to no recollection of any of that. He was simply glad to see a face he recognized amidst the false sea of verisimilitude that exists in bars or churches or sports events, each full of shallow camaraderie and fleeting fellowship. I felt awkward in the silence and prayed that Jerry wouldn’t ask me to sit down.

“What was your name again?” Jerry asked, and I wasn’t surprised.

“Jack,” I said.

“That’s right. I’m terrible with names.”

“That’s okay.”

“Jack, this is Kimberly,” Jerry said, scooting away from the table slightly and extending his hand towards the petite young woman seated across the table from him. I hadn’t noticed Kimberly at all before she was pointed out to me, perhaps because my mind wouldn’t comprehend a woman actually sitting within forty feet of a fat drunk like Jerry. I stuck my hand out to her and she shook it, seemingly grateful that someone else had drawn Jerry’s attention.

Now I wanted to be asked to join them, and I could tell that although Jerry probably would’ve liked to have Kimberly all to himself, there was an uncomfortable tension that I was somewhat easing. I stood there for a moment until Jerry finally pulled out a chair.

“Sit down, sit down,” he said. “Kimberly and I just closed a big deal today on a sweet duplex downtown. I didn’t even mind splitting the commission, that’s how big it was.” Jerry paused for a long pull off his beer and glanced over at Kimberly. “I mean, really, what’s a little extra money when you have a chance to mentor somebody who’s just starting out? I wouldn’t be where I am if I didn’t have people showing me the ropes on my way up. We’ve all gotta get our foot in the door somehow.”

“You’re a hell of guy, Jerry,” I said. I arched my eyes at Kimberly and she grinned wryly. We both knew that Jerry was just “mentoring” Kimberly because of the infinitesimal chance that she might have sex with him. Her hair was short and blonde, her eyes green and sharp, and I wondered whether Jerry was simply exerting grandiose imaginative license or if Kimberly was a climber who didn’t mind flirting with sweaty, middle-aged men in exchange for a ride to the top floor. Either way, she was cute and I had drunk enough not to give a shit about her disposition or sensibilities. I just wanted to look into those eyes for a little while longer.

Jerry was about to say something meaningless when his cell phone rang; an annoying, rhythmic bleating that Jerry seemed reluctant to answer. He held his finger up to me and stood up from the table, walked towards the bathroom. I glanced over at Kimberly and thought desperately for something to say, anything to break the silence.

“So..., you’re in real estate, huh?”

“Yep,” she said. “Mostly just downtown condos right now, but I want to branch out into the suburbs, maybe work with commercial properties.”

“Well, it looks like you’ve got a good teacher,“ I said. I took a short pull on my beer and gave a quick glance at Jerry, who looked like he was going ninety miles an hour on his cell phone.

“Yeah, that’s my partner,” Kimberly said, then sighed and took a quick sip of her mixed drink. “I’m still in my probationary period and until my ninety’s up, I have to be “mentored”, which basically means that I do all the leg work and jackass over there shows up on closing day and gets half the money.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” I said, wondering how many drinks Kimberly had already downed to make her so blatant with someone she had just met.

“I don’t think you guys are big buddies or anything, are you?”

I shook my head. “Nah. We just had a few beers together a couple months ago.”

“You looked a little like a deer in headlights when he saw you. I didn’t think you were going to sit down.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I said, then stopped myself from further explanation by taking a short drink of beer. I was nervous, the exact opposite of the guy in my dreams who would say something suave or smooth or smart and would have Kimberly eating out of the palm of his hand. I had forgotten that I wasn’t that guy and probably never would be and all the false bravado that normally ran rampant in my brain was simply a prolonged exercise in masturbation that took the place of any real contact with a live, breathing female. I started to say something, anything, when Kimberly nodded towards the bathroom and I turned enough to see Jerry coming our way. I had my chance and I blew it.

Jerry looked flustered as he sauntered back to our table. His bulbous gut swung in and out of the crowd like a baby strapped to his abdomen and Jerry seemed particularly careful in not letting anyone get close to it, perhaps in fear that if someone touched his protruding belly, he would have to acknowledge it was there. When Jerry finally made his way to our table, he grabbed his coat from his chair and slung it over his shoulder.

“I’ve gotta go,” Jerry said. “My daughter hurt her ankle playing basketball and the old lady is at the hospital freaking out. She says they think it could be broke, but they’re waiting on X-rays. Anyway, I’ve got to head over there and find out what’s going on. Kimberly, you need a ride back to the office?”

I looked over at Kimberly and thought about how dumb I was for not making my move when I had my chance. Now she was leaving and I had just ordered another beer and would have to sit at the table and finish my drink alone. Kimberly met my absent gaze and smiled, then looked up at Jerry and waved him on.

“That’s okay, Jerry,” she said. “It’s only a few blocks. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, you go ahead, get to your family. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jerry gave me a steely look that said either he didn’t trust me with Kimberly or perhaps that he was jealous that she had chosen to stay at the bar with me. Probably the latter, considering I didn’t take Jerry for the chivalrous type that would be concerned about a damsel in distress unless she was offering him something. I nodded at Jerry and said, “Well, Jerry, it was nice seeing you again. I hope your daughter’s okay.”

Jerry shook his head in disgust, like his family was an inconvenience that filled time in between business deals and bar stops. The idea that maybe he should have been at his daughter’s basketball game in the first place probably never occurred to Jerry and I felt no need to enlighten him. I just wanted him to get his ass down the road so I could take advantage of my new lease on life, a little more time with Kimberly.

“It’s always something,” Jerry said. “I can’t even have a drink without everything at home falling apart.”

Then Jerry was gone. I gathered myself and took a deep breath, tried to think of something brilliant to say, when Kimberly chimed up in the middle of my self-deliberation and almost made me hack up the drink that hung perilously in my throat.

“So, what’s my number?” she said, smiling and looking right at me. I forced the drink down into my gut and raised my eyes and scrunched my face in a poor attempt at looking surprised.

“Do what?”

“You heard me. Jerry saw you sitting at the bar before you ever took notice of us, and he said that you had this elaborate system of grading women, with precise numbering and thorough evaluations. So I was just wondering, since you’re an expert and all, what my number is.”

I could feel a humming numbness in my chest and a hotness in my cheeks and ears. All the positive aspects of drunkenness, those feelings of levity and lightness and liveliness, were gone and all I was left with was downside; haziness, anxiety, and the overwhelming need to piss. I felt like I had been on a pleasant hike into the wilderness and had fallen into a crevasse lined with spikes at the bottom that would skewer me for eternity.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying like hell to keep my voice from cracking. Kimberly frowned and started for her coat.

“I should have taken that ride from Jerry,” she said. “Here I am trying to have a decent conversation and you want to start backpedaling and get all defensive.” Her purse was hanging on her chair and she started to dig inside it. “How much do I owe you for the drinks?” she said.

The urge to talk to and listen to Kimberly, to see and be seen with her, overrode my embarrassment and for once in my life, I made an effort to step up to the plate.

“Don’t go,” I said. “I’m sorry, it’s just kind of embarrassing, talking about something like that. It was just bullshit bar talk, a bunch of crap that guys say about women that they wouldn’t have a shot with anyway. I can’t believe Jerry told you about that.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Kimberly said, but she relaxed and took her hand out of her purse, signaled the waitress for another round of drinks. When the waitress paused at our table, I grabbed a shot glass from her tray and nailed it, not knowing or caring what the dark liquid was. The waitress gave me a dirty look and yanked the shot glass from me when I held it out to her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Put it on my tab.”

The waitress walked away and I immediately regretted taking the shot (I think it was Jaegermeister), but Kimberly laughed a throaty and raspy laugh and reached out and grabbed my hand.

“That’s more like it,” she said. “Just grab the steering wheel and go. Don’t worry about what happens next.”

I held onto Kimberly’s hand and nodded towards the bar. “See that lady right there?”

“Which lady?”

“The one with the tight sweater and poofy bangs who’s laughing way too loud.”

“Yeah?”

“Okay, well she’s a 6.34 on my scale. Plain face, average breasts, big ass, decent legs. Not bad, but not exactly good either.”

“Wow, you are precise,” Kimberly said, and I didn’t feel nearly as weird as I should have. “Tell me how you came to that number.”

“6.34?”

“Right.”

“It’s mostly intuitive. I take the face and the body, combine the two, then account for other random factors that might move my number a tenth or so. No more than three tenths.”

“Do you factor personality?”

“Yes and no. The more I get to know a woman, the more it affects the number either way, good or bad. See, that woman at the bar, she’s got a desperate quality, like she thinks she deserves way better than what life has offered so far. It’s a condescending attitude, one that says that she thinks she’s superior to the guys at the bar, so instead of maybe being a 6.5 or 6.6, she stuck with the 6.34 until further notice. See how it works?”

Kimberly let go of my hand and it was like the breaking of a circuit. She looked at me for a moment and I decided that I had nothing more to hide, win or lose, so I just stared right back with a unapologetic look on my face.

“Do you do guys?” she said, and I snickered and nearly coughed beer out of my nose.

“Not usually,” I said. “Unless I’m really desperate.”

“You know what I mean. Have you ever evaluated yourself?”

“No, that would screw up the numbers.”

“How so?”

“Well, because I’m the template. I’m objective. If I give myself a hard and fast number, it would skew the whole system. I’d be measuring women up to myself, and that’s not the point. Theoretically I would be a ten, an omniscient outside force that judges as he wills.”

“Or a zero,” Kimberly said, smirking again. “Seeing as you need a base number.”

“Yeah, that’s right, too. To keep it simple, you could look at me as either a zero or a ten, whatever you’d like, whatever floats your boat.”

“You know what I think?”

“No, but I’d like to.”

“I think you’re just like everybody else, somewhere in between zero and ten and wishing you were either one so life would be easier. Then you wouldn’t have to try.”

“Wouldn’t have to try what?” I asked, feeling hijacked from my own neurosis, but wishing I could touch the slight skim of blush that brightened Kimberly’s cheeks.

“You wouldn’t have to try to have something more than you think you deserve. Wouldn’t have to admit that you’re a lot better and a lot worse that any category, and that no matter how many static humans you encounter every day, that you can be the one who breaks the mold and becomes more than what he is, or falls flat on his head trying. Either one is better than being stuck with some arbitrary number.”

“But statistics don’t lie,” I said. “The evaluations are what they are. I just make the numbers, I don’t break them.”

Kimberly smiled and tapped her finger on the table. “You still haven’t told me what my number is,” she said.

I grabbed a napkin from the edge of the table and slid it towards Kimberly, pulled a pen from my shirt pocket. An ultimate moment of cheese, a defining slice of who I wanted to be and who I actually was. I handed her the pen and she took it and wrote down the one thing I had been searching for. That perfect number.