On April 12th, 1971, Shannen Maria Doherty entered the world.
April 12th, 2009, came and went, and she and I are still not back together.
The rumors that we are a couple have to stop, and they have to stop now.
If the social conservatives ask, it is because sex before marriage is a sin.
If my parents ask, of course I know she is not Jewish.
Yet deep down I know the truth. She is Jewish.
One only has to play the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” to grasp this.
In fact, the trail is much shorter than that.
She was on “Beverly Hills, 90210.” Beverly Hills is approximately 70% Jewish. In college, 70% is the lowest passing grade. Therefore, she is just barely Jewish, by the skin of her (redacted).
She has me so confused that that I am now redacting the word “teeth.”
It has been 15 years since we were together. Now of course, thanks to Bill Clinton, the word “together” can mean whatever I want it to mean. Well we were together. I worked in a retail store, and she was a customer. We did speak.
It started out innocently enough in 1994. I saw her walk in, nearly fainted, and calmly went into the back room to talk to the owner. All my coworkers knew what was up. The owner saw her and knew.
“Sir, please clear all of the customers out of the store. I want Shannen on top of the jewelry table right now.”
Like a block of ice from Antarctica, the owner was offering discounts on brutal reality.
“Oh, I am sure a woman making $100,000 a week is going to go out with a guy making $5 per hour.”
(Laugh all you want, but only weeks later I got a raise to $5.50!)
I tried to explain to him that honor and integrity are important, but that in the same way liberals believe in an evolving Constitution, I believed in what I call “flexible morality.”
“Sir, Just tell her I am the owner of the store.”
He then turned into the love child of Socrates and Abraham Lincoln.
(Actually my boss was a Seikh. I think every guy with a long beard has an emotional connection to Abe.)
“Eric, don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Now come on! That is not fair. I hate it when people take cheap shots by injecting a situation with the poison pill of accurate facts.
Yes, I had a girlfriend, but this was the hottest Republican brunette on the planet. There had to be an exemption somewhere.
I went to help her with her merchandise, and my intention was to compliment her brilliant speech at the 1992 GOP Convention. That was really my only major familiarity with her work.
“Ms. Doherty, although I have never seen a full episode of ‘90210…'”
She immediately cut me off and said, “Oh I don’t blame you, it’s terrible. That’s why I am leaving. You didn’t miss anything.”
Wow, maybe God does protect the dumb, but I scored points by sheer accident. I continued.
“Like I said, I don’t know your acting, but your speech at the 1992 Convention was great.”
She smiled and asked, “Oh, are you a Republican?”
After that she was very friendly. We talked politics for about 20 minutes, and she really knew her stuff. Her analysis of the 1996 race was as solid as any pundit.
As I prepared to ask her out, my boss from the other side of the room whispered the word “girlfriend.”
Had I asked her out, even though this was Hollywood fantasy, even if she had said no…that would have been cheating. When you have a girlfriend, and you hit on somebody else, that is cheating.
(Yeah, I know. I’m a moron.)
I finished helping her with her merchandise, and as she prepared to leave the store, she said, “I enjoyed this. I’ll come back again.”
As she walked out, after the door closed, I exclaimed, “Wait, Shannen…you forgot the wedding and the kids. Come back.”
I never saw her again.
I still own the note she wrote me. No, it is not laminated on my wall. It is buried somewhere in my walk-in closet beneath old midterms from classes I barely remember. To the best of my knowledge, the note reads,
“Something-or-other, blah blah blah, etc etc, stay Republican, love, Shannen Doherty.”
I could say that every April 12th I lament this situation, but the truth is it was sheer coincidence that I learned her birthdate for the first time on April 11th, 2009, leading to a hastily cobbled together column that makes as much sense as (insert senseless simile).
From 1997 through 1999, I worked in area code 90210. I never saw her.
On January 3rd, 2009, I became single again. I wanted to reach out to her, but I got distracted by the NFL playoffs and the last 17 days of real American leadership.
On January 9th, I celebrated my birthday, and she did not pop out of a cake for me. Therefore, I will not reciprocate her non-gesture.
Now she is back on “90210,” but I am in a relationship.
The timing was never right.
Ms. Doherty, we are both politically conservative and morally liberal. I would be happy to deck a paparazzi guy for you provided he was a liberal and you have connections with the judge.
Happy birthday, Shannen. Until overwhelming evidence of wrong that only Janet Reno could ignore comes to light, I will wish you a Happy Passover.
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net
http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com