Sunday, January 24, 2010

How Me and the Hoop Came To BE: part 1

Sometime in November, 2008.

I never pick up hitch-hikers, unless they are young, desperate females who could be at the mercy of the guy driving behind me, so when I saw this girl standing in the snow on the side of the highway I put on my signal and pulled over. She climbed into the truck, thanking me as we accellerated toward town.
We exchanged names. I'm always so curious about people, so I said, "What do you do for work?"
"I manage a spa and give treatments," and I happen to know who she works for. Nice. Smile.
She was quite beautiful. Her hair was in a funky up-do and her make-up was skillfully applied; and she had a great figure and the kind of legs that make me think she must just not eat. Eyes on the road. It's not polite to stare.
"What about you?"
"Right now I'm teaching poi classes at the school..."
"Oh really? I make indoor hula hoops." (Poi and hooping are cousins related through the rave scene.)
"You make them??" (Indoor? Outdoor? What?!)
"Yeah..." like I've just come out of the last century, "from irrigation pipe, and I fill them with water and they're covered with fabric and fur and yarn," and described how she used sealant so the water didn't leak out.
I tried to conjure up some kind of image. A hula hoop with FUR? Now I'm really curious. "Do you sell them?"
"Yup. They're thirty bucks." So matter-of-fact.
I had a lot more questions for this girl, but we were now in front of her workplace.
"Can I have your phone number?"
She wrote hers down for me and said she was going away for Christmas, but if I wanted a custom hoop she could make me one. A custom hoop....

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