Bigfoot more determined than ever to avoid people

A close personal friend of mine is a Yeti, and like most, she keeps a low profile. She says she figures if she “came out” to people, it would be a big deal for a few days, she’d be on some talk shows and all that, but then people would be like So what?  Then she’d be a big joke. She figures mystery is her main asset, says she’s says not really deep, witty, talented, or funny, she’s not “hot,” or cute, or anything.

I respect her choice, but I don’t agree. She may not be pretty in any conventional, magazine model kind of way, but, she’s striking, and has her own look. It grows on you, believe me. The only reason I never made a move is I wouldn’t want a physical relationship to affect our friendship. Also, I’m married.

She’s amazingly smart. For instance, I was having trouble with bats out at our little cabin, and I couldn’t find anything, anywhere, about what to do. We were having a few beers in my backyard and soon as she heard me mention it, she said “Well, you can string up fishing line in the trees. Messes with their sonar, keeps them away, and you don’t even see it there. But I’d leave them alone--you want them around for the mosquitoes.” All the googling I’d done was a waste of time. I should know by know to just ask her.

She’s the kind of friend you can count on for grounded, practical wisdom. If I start to get carried away about something, I can just think of her, her attitude toward life, and it tends to keep me from jumping in and making a fool of myself.

She prefers the term Yeti. She’s not sensitive about her feet--”I know I have big feet, so what?--and she doesn’t take offense at it. But she doesn’t like to participate in calling people names based on a physical attribute. She says “Oedipus is this great tragedy, but ever since I found out it means “club-foot” it sounds sort of stupid. Hey Club-foot, how’s your family? It’s childish.”

She has this dry, effortless sense of humor. The church nearby had put up a sign that said Jesus 10, the devil 0, and I thought it was pretty silly. She just nodded, and explained several ways Jesus could’ve scored ten points, in various games, without any errors. Because,  you know, you wouldn’t expect Jesus to screw up. In conversation, she never brings up anything as dumb as that, but if you do, she picks it right up and runs with it. I told her one time how I keep thinking I’ll eventually say something that’s just too stupid for her to even comment on, she’ll just have to shake her head, but so far, she always catches the ball, goes in for the lay up. She said “Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of friends, growing up, so I guess I thought about little stupid stuff a lot.”

Sometimes I’ve pushed her to go out more, be with people. I always invite her to come along, or walk down, get a beer at Seidenfaden’s. She just looks away. Says she has things she needs to do. I say we could go get coffee, she says What’s this big thing with coffee, these days? If I try to get her to go eat somewhere, she says she’s on a restricted diet, and it’s too hard to figure things out at a restaurant. Or she says maybe she’ll see me there, later, and goes on her way. She never makes a big fuss about hellos or goodbyes.

I think she sells herself short, but the sad thing is, she’s probably right. It’s better for her to keep her distance. People are jerks. They’re mostly only interested in her to the extent she’s exotic, the new thing. We don’t have much interest in plain, ordinary virtues, or the exposed miracles all around us, everyday. When I think about it, it makes me sad.