Candy From Strangers

"Never accept an invitation from a stranger unless he gives you candy."

Who in the hell Linda Festa, and why do I ask myself that question? Well, the quotation above, which made me chuckle when I read it, is attributed to her. The only information I could find out about her was that she was a lawyer and politician who lived from 1847-1908. This was before the age of the automobile, so she wasn't talking about a Catholic school girl in her cute, little, navy-blue uniform, who's being lured into a Ford coupe by a smooth-talking stranger. It would have been the horse-and-buggy era. The guy would have had a handlebar mustache, a sleazy leer, and a black tophat. The girl would have likely been a ragamuffin. A box of chocolates would have meant something.

I found one other quotation that is attributed to Linda Festa. "The most important thing in a relationship between a man and a woman is that one of them must be good at taking orders." That's precious, and true, though it's not politically correct to say so in this age of denial. A relationship certainly may not boil down to something as harsh as the giving and taking of orders. It may be more subtle than that, but it does come down to control. One person has it, and the other cedes it.* If that doesn't happen, then the relationship is doomed. It's the way of the monkeys and, let's face it, we're monkeys down in the DNA. There are no 50-50 intimate relationships. Someone's going to be the alpha.

* Ms. Festa is talking about heterosexual relationships, but it has been my observation that the same thing is true for those who prefer partners of the same sex.