"Come with me to my cousin's wedding, Harry. I promise you a good time."

"For like the tenth time, Pauline, forget it, I'm not interested. Did you serve that customer in the purple fur coat?"

"I can't. I don't do purple...So are you coming with me to, my cousin's wedding?"

Chicks in purple are wild.  "Please drop the subject, or I'll wear purple tomorrow. Harry said. He couldn't stand Pauline, but he didn't want her to leave him alone. 

"What's not for you? I will make you happy."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Tempting. He'd experienced her fine work before.  But that was behind a closed door, going to a wedding with her was public and that could be dangerous. 

Harry did. Cave in to the power of the she-devil during a fleeting moment of weakness and hate yourself for life. Better to take a deep breath and play, 'Hey, I'm a cool guy.' 

"Thanks for the kind offer, Pauline, but I'll take a pass."

"You are such a putz, Harry." Harry loved to hear a shikse say that word. "I do well with putzes."

"Look, I can't go to that wedding with you because I just fell in love with a girl I met this week...Now why am I telling you this? Oh right, because I am a putz."

"Love strikes like lightning...Then it's gone. You can still come to the wedding with me."

Harry rolled his eyes and sighed. Another ridiculous chick conversation. The belt business was turning him into mental mush. The week before he tripped into another moronic exchange with another intellectual lightweight, another fuschia-haired boutique owner from Quebec decked out in Elton John glasses. She asked Harry for a simultaneous French translation the Stevie Wonder song, I Just Called to Say I Love You, while it played in the showroom at the time. And like a simpering fool, Harry actually did it and badly. The look on her face -- as if she was watching a freak show. The fact that his mouth that wouldn't stop, couldn't stop the rambling gibberish spewing out like a stream of verbal diarrhea. The horror, the horror. The ridiculous belt business. Time to move to LA and make it big.

"Okay, I'll go." He had no idea why he agreed and regretted it instantaneously. One more stupid thing to add to the inventory.

But first Harry would have to get through Market Week.