THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 29, 1994 TAG: 9410290203
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
How is it some people can command attention without even trying?
I bet you at their birth, amid a passel of infants, nurses went to them first.
They just have savoir-faire, as loaded with it as a shag dog with ticks. Others - such as I, or if you prefer the colloquial, such as me - couldn't catch a fly's eye with a swatter.
Once, in a restaurant of fine cuisine, a young lady in our party of six asked me to signal the waiter. She wanted a glass of water.
``Have mine,'' I suggested, knowing we were in for trouble if we waited on me to snare a waiter. ``It is only half drunk.''
But no, she wanted her own glass of water. That is the ``me generation'' for you.
No satisfying them without going all out. But, noblesse oblige, she would have her water, by cob!
So as the next waiter was passing dim-lit in the night, I raised my hand high like a frantic fifth-grader asking to be excused.
The waiter looked through me as if I were, well, a fifth-grader, and bore on.
When he hove into view on the next flyby, I was ready, braced with one hand to arise with a rush like a covey of quail, gripping a napkin with the other, and was struggling upward in an awkward half crouch when I tipped the chair over and, trying to reach back to steady it, lost my balance and went down backward with it.
If a clown could perfect that act, he would be a sensation in the center ring with Ringling Bros.
I actually fell into a sitting position on my back in the chair.
My feet, flying upward, caught the table edge and brought the water glass tumbling to the floor, most of it on me.
That caught the Flying Dutchman's attention.
Also that of his partner and the manager rushing from out back.
And I, clambering to my feet with as much dignity as could be mustered amid shambles, the first man learning to get off all fours, said to them, with a slight wave toward her, ``This young lady would like some water, if it wouldn't be too much trouble.''
Another trial is to quiet a room by tapping a water glass. At a recent banquet, the host asked me, at his right elbow, to sound the water glass.
The whack I gave it with a spoon would have cracked the Liberty Bell. Nobody bothered to look up.
``That's crystal,'' he said. ``Let me try.'' He flipped an index finger against the rim and drew a light ping. The company fell silent.
The most trying, humiliating feat of all is snagging a taxi. During the GOP National Convention in Dallas, three of us - Margaret Edds, Warren Fiske and I - watched from the sidewalk as the cabs swam by.
Warren and I, determined to be gallant, while tactful Margaret waited, waved a tentative hand now and then, and the cabs, if anything, picked up speed.
So at last we two thrust into the avenue, waving arms, shouting all out. We cavorted about like maddened mummers in a street parade.
To no avail. And Margaret, sedate, stepped forward slightly on the pavement. Three cabs screeched to a halt.
I think she raised her right eyebrow. by CNB