Did you ever have one of those days where, at the end of it, you have had a great deal more life experience than you did when it started? Friday was one of those days.

It started out looking like a pretty nothing sort of day...but by the end of it I had

1. driven through one of the worst neighborhoods in Baltimore with a loaded .38

2. been in a strip club
and

3. successfully differntiated between blood and salsa. ( it was salsa, Mom! If your heart is racing call the dr!!!)

This is what happened:

I felt sorry for Cat Lady because one of her cats is missing. Not a cat that lives in her house....there's backstory to this. Her younger brother met a tragic and untimely death two years ago ( as if her life was not hard enough!). Naturally, she took in the cats that he had, but one of them did not get along at all in a multi-cat household. Since the cat was really unhappy, she gave him to other family members to care for.

In taking care of her brother's cats, she felt that this was a way of continuing her relationship with him. She couldn't bring him back and he had no children form whom she could care, but she could make sure that the cats he had loved were well cared for and so she did it out of love for him. All of this was immediately clear to me - and I'd think it would be clear to anybody - but I guess her family is on a different waveleangth. They lost the cat...and then didn't tell her about it for 3 weeks.

Naturally, she wanted to put up flyers, etc. But she has not got the health to be tramping all over the place, running out into intersections and all of that by herself. Moreover, their "homeplace" is in I-----ton, which used to be a nice suburb of the city. Now it's not.

Cat Lady was at great pains, as we were driving to put up the flyers, to explain all this about "the old neighborhood" but I understood it completely. After all, some of my most cherished childhood memories took place in the Brooklyn nieghborhood of Baltimore, but if I went down there today I'd be taking my life in my hands just to walk down the street after dark.

Then, suddenly, she flipped up the console in the center of the SUV she was driving, looked aghast, slammed it shut, and looked at me with series of expersions of mixed distress.

"There's something I have to tell you. We may need to change course...because....well, you see there was a weapon in there. I mean -it's like this. My husband, whose vehicle this is, has to carry a lot of money on his job ( that's true) and is often in bad neighborhoods doing business. So he got a permit to carry a concealed weapon. He left it in there. He told me, the safety is on, just to take it out by the nose, but I never did get around to it. And then somebody else drove this and now.....can you look in there and see if there's a weapon?"

"A handgun." I said flatly. Wonderful, I thought, it's got to be a handgun because a rifle certainly doesn't fit in there, and it's got to be loaded because if it wasn't it wouldn't matter if the safety was on or not. So we either have a lost loaded handgun or are driving around with a loaded handgun without a permit to carry a concealed weapon. This is just splendid. "Is it loaded?"

"Is it in there?" she asked.

Peering into the console I spotted a gleaming silver handle stuffed between two C.D.'s. "It's in there" I said. "Is it loaded?"

" I don't know. Take it out and see. Just pick it up by the nose, we can see if the clip is in."

I didn't want to pick it up at all. I wouldn't know a clip from cheese dip, and I didn't want the education. Gingerly, I pulled the thing up by it's nose and held it carefully in the open palm of my hand. Bright silver and the coldest thing I've ever touched, I looked at it. .38 caliber, it said on the side.

The purpose of this item I was holding is to do harm to people. You could kill someone else, or yourself in an eyeblink with it. It was like holding a snake, or the leash of a cheetah. Yet it just sat there, nothing in and of itself - it's destiny waiting in the hand that held it. Mine at that moment. "Do you see the part that's the clip?" I asked.

"Yes, it's in. Don't worry, the safety is on. That clip, I don't really understand it. The gun works so that if you press the trigger it just keeps on firing til you release it - that is, when the safety is off. What's that called? Automatic?"

"That's called insane." I said, carefully replacing the thing in the console making sure that the barrell was pointed out the back of the SUV in case there was an accident.

"Well, at least we don't have to report it stolen."

Oh yeah, there's a blessing I thought and filed it in the part of my mind that tries not to think about things.

Cat Lady began to give me the tour of I----ton, as it is and as it once was. We concentrated on neighborhood stores which were mostly liquor stores with a few hot dogs and some bread in a corner so they could call themselves groceries. We went to some carry out places, except for one where they didn't seem to have any food. "Hmm. I guess they just change food stamps in there." I remarked.

"What do you know about that?" Cat Lady asked in surprise.

"I didn't just fall off a turnip truck, you know!"

"Oh, no, I don't mean that. I mean you just look so wholesome....and you have such a direct way of looking at people. You've got that whole Corn Face look going on."

"Thanks, I think!"

"Oh, God! I do that all the time! I meant to say 'corn fed' and 'fresh faced' at the same time. And, my God, people will do ANYTHING for you. You keep going in and these shop keepers who are usually nasty and pretend to not speak English and don't let anybody put anything up....but you got my sign in these primo locations. It's got to be your face."

It had nothing to do with my face. A lot of the shopkeepers didn't have a lot of English, but you don't need a lot to understand "Cancer patiant. Lost cat. Crying." And you'd have to have a heart like a brick to not be a little sympathetic.....but even that's not what did it.

It was respect. To Asian shopkeepers I dipped my upper body a little bit and spoke extremely quietly. To African American shopkeepers I lowered my eyes and spoke distinctly. To white women with hard faces I smiled broadly and made eye contact. I called everyone "Sir" or "Ma'm" even if they were 15 years younger than me. I thanked them for even looking at the flyer. People in I----ton are the same as people everywhere. All they want is a little respect, and if you appeal to a person's better self then chances are that's the part that they answer with.

Oh, I'm exhausted....it's almost midnight again. But I promise to give you the sequel tomorrow. Stay tuned!