HONEY LOVE - IS IT TRUE TOMCHIK?

IN A CHANCE ENCOUNTER DOWN AT STUCKEY'S, THE AULD BUFF WAS RUDELY INTERRUPTED BY HIS PAST. AND NOW HE'S GOT SOME SONOROUS QUESTIONS FOR DA TOMCHIK INNIT

BUFFALO: Dude?

TOMCHIK: Oh, yes, I see, you're talking to me.

BUFFALO: Well, I don't see nobody else here.

TOMCHIK: You want to ask me about something?

BUFFALO: It's like this, Tomchik. I was hitting on the pecan logs down at Stuckey's when this drop-dead gorgeous blonde came my way. She ditsied over and kissed me full on the lips and said she never expected to find me here. Well, I knew that kiss, those cheeks, those eyes, that smell... It was Trudi, with an I, ya get me? And ker-bam sha-lam wooo-hooo! I was in love all over again. You still with me?

TOMCHIK: Er, yes, I think I can follow your meandering train of thought.

BUFFALO: Well, the thing is, see, Trudi and me were an item way back in the days when I wore shorts and she wore white ankle socks va va vooom!

TOMCHIK: You were, how do you say, childhood sweethearts, yes?

BUFFALO: Bull's-eye. Nailed it in one. So anyhoo, my question is this. Is it true, Tomchik, that honey love lasts forever?

TOMCHIK: By this you mean, that you can still harbour intense feelings for one individual all your life?

BUFFALO: Yup.

TOMCHIK: Well, I believe that my mother and father were inseparable and held a deep respect and love for each other, even though they frequently argued and kept their silence sometimes for years, right until the end. And my younger sister is still with the lorry driver who picked her up 20 years ago whilst delivering frozen chickens to the Arctic, so, yes, it seems to me perfectly possible that you still feel the same, as it were, for another human being.

BUFFALO: Thank Freddy for that, cos I thought I was going shit-stirring crazy. OK, right, my next question is this. See, Trudi et moi, well, we were fixing on making up for lost time so we um, went out in the parking lot, got in the back of the pickup and got on down with the wiggly-jiggly.

TOMCHIK: Oh, dear, now you are going to ask me for an opinion on something that has always refused to submit itself to scientific method.

BUFFALO: So... we rumpy pumpied till the parking lot was sparse and me loins were raw.

TOMCHIK: I'm sorry, you did what?

BUFFALO: Shagged like rabbits until me nuts near on fell off, like.

TOMCHIK: That's what I thought you meant.

BUFFALO: Anyhoo, to cut a long celery short, she asked me to marry her.

TOMCHIK: I see.

BUFFALO: So naturally, now I'm running scared, wishing I'd never set eyes on those all-dancing, all-singing melons of hers again. Am I afraid of commitment? Am I a loser? Am I always going to go Freddy up? Is it true, Tomchik?

TOMCHIK: Well, it seems to me, all things reduced defacto to the sum of the whole which is never quite the equal of its constituent parts, I would advise you to indulge in the classic pluses and minuses exercise.

BUFFALO: Huh? Wassat?

TOMCHIK: Make two columns, one for the elements you deem to be positive in this possible future together, and one for the elements you deem to be negative.

BUFFALO: Wow. OK. Here goes. On the plus side, um, we'll be able to fornicate like otters ad infinitum and... um... uh... ho... ha... he... And on the minus side, I'll have to be responsive to her needs 24/7, make her feel special, take her out, buy her presents, keep myself and the place tidy and pretend to like her mother a lot. Oh, and talk about settling down, holidays and how great it'll be to grow old together whilst I lose every goddamn friend I ever had. It's a no brainer, dude. Tanks a lot for making me seal the light.

TOMCHIK: It was nothing, really, you know. I merely helped you to apply your innate common sense to the seemingly imponderable situation.

BUFFALO: Phew. Relieved over here, dude. Hey, next time yer in Motown, look me up and I'll buy you a beer.

TOMCHIK: To be absolutely honest with you, I would not be seen dead in the industrial wasteland of misery Newsweek calls Michigan. And I hate beer. But I know your offer was meant well. Oh, I'm sorry, there's a very interesting email that has just arrived from the International Fellowship of Physicists & Other Concerned Academics Against Waste Paper & Other Antisocial Practices in the Former Soviet Union. It demands an immediate response. Goodbye.

BUFFALO: Wot the Freddy! Now dat's wot I call fecking rude, calculus for brains! Oh, er, is Trudi there, perchance? It's just I've been thinking...