She appears in a bit of a rush. It is late in the afternoon, and she conceivably has more important things to do than wait at a garage for a tire replacement. Her hair is her own, dyed with streaks of pinkish-red and braided close to her head and gathered in a bun. She’s got that prime, light skin that BT-1000s envy, wearing a short, fitting, camouflage-patterned dress (army fantasy anyone?), and tall boots. She won’t sit down inside the waiting area but stands at the door working the male crowd of color, which starts in a nice shade of ginger ale and descends to coke. These are her targets and all we have working at the garage except for an older man who couldn’t ever have wanted the white daddy role and is well beyond that time even if he did. In fact, he and I are the only full palefaces in the operation, but he’s not in now.

When another customer comes up to the owner to discuss his repair, she chimes out, “Me first!” When she walks to her parked car to pull it into the garage area, I see a purposefully, affected gait, which looks a little funny to me because it's not as smooth as some I've seen, but it causes as much side-to-side motion as she can muster and looks like something she polished as a child. I remember noticing the BT slut gait when I was growing up in Philly and trying it out. There was something about the gimme-attention aspect of it which put me off and after trying a few strides myself, decided against it, much as I opted against making myself an attention-getter as an adult, because 1) the attention embarrassed me, and 2) if you make yourself attractive to everything, you’re likely to get anything, and anything, was not what I wanted in my life, unlike this ho who seemed to be hunting her prey indiscriminately from the available herd.

Other behaviors which she exhibited were joking, teasing, butting in (pun intended), asserting her place in the order, playing her ho card for any possible advantage, hanging around the mechanics while they work, and trying to chat up the owner who ignores her while he plays his I’m-a-busy-man card. He’s shared stories, so I know he loves his wife like crazy. He doesn’t even look at the ho when she addresses him, walking away sideways and moving quickly while answering. He avoids being engaged in her unnecessary-to-the-job conversation, and I envy his wife like crazy in that moment. She has been married to him 17 years, is still well loved, and is from a culture that doesn’t practice dumping their wives at the worst possible moment (yes, some moments are worse than others for this sort of thing).

They finish getting the tire on her car, and she rolls away, finally.

Later, I wonder aloud to James how you raise a ho…? I have two daughters and one granddaughter, and our lineage is lovely and ho-free. I think we should write an article together, I tell him, because I know how not to raise a ho, and I am certain that you’ve seen plenty of how-to ho mammas.

I hope he can take a moment from his serious research, because this sounds like a ton of fun and hysterical laughter and good for whatever ails two increasingly besieged residents of Dindustan.