Riley Martin Loves Me!

While I don't consider myself religious - at all - I do worship at two altars. One is my favorite local bar where, yes everyone does know my name. The other is at the feet of Howard Stern. My day doesn't start off right without Howierd and the gang getting me going.

Today for example I didn't listen as to not wake Husband (he gets the day off - the nerve) and I totally forgot to put on mascara. Now I know that seems like a pretty inconsequential thing, but I l-o-v-e getting ready in the morning and take great pride in my look. Sephora is one of my favorite places on earth, and really for me that was a huge thing, like forgetting to put on socks.

Hey, some people drink coffee in the morning. Me, I listen to Howard Stern.

My buddy Steve is as obsessed as I am, as a matter of fact I wasn't always a fan of Steve and his rocking beard, but we bonded over The Stern Show. Steve's birthday is on January 6th (just 7 days after mine - wink) and I bought him the greatest birthday present ever. A Biaviian symbol hand crafted just for him by Mr. Riley Martin himself. For those of you who don't know, Riley was abducted by aliens in November of 1953 at the age of 7 and again when he was 18. During the second abduction he was given all the information of life and thousands of symbols were downloaded into his brain. These symbols would serve as a ticket of sorts for those who wished to go with the mothership when it returned. Total horse-shit I know, but that's the beauty of it.

It's not easy to order a symbol as a present. Because each one is unique to it's owner Riley requires a certain amount of information on each recipient. I needed to furnish Riley with Steve's full name, a picture, and a hand writing sample. I would need to place my order soon so I started collecting the tools required to proceed.

I was able to find out Steve's middle name through some subtle yet crafty bar conversation. Then he sent me a hilariously horrible picture of himself from bed one night after we had been out. Awesome, I had a recent picture and my plan was falling into place. The hand writing sample was going to be tricky though. I contemplated stealing a debit card receipt, I mean that was the only time I really ever saw him write anything, but then his finances would be off. Not a very friendly thing to do. I finally procured my sample by asking him to sign the CD leaflet from his old band's cd.

That was the hardest one of the three items to get. You see, Steve suffers from a misplaced sense of self confidence (his words) and he loves me so much mostly because he says I call him out on all his crap. It was very hard to act humble and ask him to sign that cd, really - it killed me. Although I do have to admit he's a very talented guitar player who also writes great songs. Still, I'm not really in the market for his autograph. But, I sucked it up because this was going to be the best birthday gift ever! .....and I'm really into birthdays.

I scanned the signature in and sent everything off to Riley. I also included my phone number per the sites request because sometimes Riley likes to contact people who are buying his symbols. Unfortunately, I was in a meeting with my boss when I got Riley's call. At first listen I though someone was screwing with me while doing a dead on Riley Martin impression. Then I remembered the symbol.

Riley's message was great, and I'm pretty sure he gave me his home phone number to call him back. (I could hear a tv in the background, and lets face it, he's not exactly a corporation) Yea, I totally stored his number in my communicators data base and I saved the message playing it for anyone who will listen. It was perfect, really drawn out and very wordy, in other words typical Riley.

I wish I could say that Riley and I had a great phone conversation, but it was spotty at best. When I called he answered almost immediately. I said hello and introduced myself. He called me 'my dear' a lot and said he was calling to ask if Steve's last name was English or Irish (it's neither).

I couldn't remember what nationality Steve is except that it's not Italian as I had originally thought. I think he's eastern European, his people are definitely from somewhere that produces unusually hairy men.

Shit. I panicked then lied and told Riley Steve was English. (I hope this little fib doesn't render Steve's passage to the mothership invalid.) Then Riley told me I was a thoughtful girl to give Steve a symbol before I even order one for myself.

This was a golden opportunity for a great Riley conversation. He is constantly complaining about his pitiful wage earned from Sirius for his weekly radio program. I was just discussing my salary with my boss, plus symbols are a bit pricey, even for original artwork.

This all would have segued nicely into how the man was keeping me down, how we were alike in that way. We could have chatted for hours. Instead I muttered, "well, I'll get there eventually" to which Riley chucked.

What's with the loss of words? Was I starstruck? Maybe I was shocked by the blatant sales pitch. Eventually, Riley ended the call. Not before he wished me and mine the happiest of holidays and told me he loved me. That's right he said, "I love you" and then paused. Again I was speechless, and I'm never speechless. Was I supposed to say it back? I suddenly felt like I was in was fifteen again. What do you do when a boy says he loves you? Apparently, I Panic. I got off the phone - quickly. And that was that. I always thought I was more a fight than flight kind of girl, but apparently when under pressure I'm a freeze.