Showdown at the Downtown Fountain/Prize giveaway

A little background: I had declared to my blog readers that at high noon Sunday, I would park myself at the downtown fountain to hand out the brass-like desk lamp and the color-changing light cube to the blog challenge winners. Lest you think I had nothing better to do on a Sunday, I had plans to meet with a former student, who was getting cold feet about going to grad school at NYU. I knew what she needed -- some encouraging words that would set her straight.
“Have I taught you nothing???!!!! Of course you’re going! Why are you still here, sucking the air around me? Go already!”

Yes, I knew what she needed.

It turned out that she also knew what she needed. Prior to meeting me at Blue Moon, she decided and committed. She’s going.
Crisis averted, I was able to focus on the time and the fountain.

This was what happened next.

11:59 a.m.: I push my bike across the street to the fountain.
High noon: A bespectacled man gets out of a nondescript car that’s parked nearby.

He approaches me and asks, “Are you Grace?”

I am cautiously suspicious. “Yes?”

He smiles. “I am golferdude’s emissary.”

Now, I pride myself for my rock-steady ways, but dabnabit, that golferdude threw me a curve ball.

The man did say, “Maybe I’ll send my people.” And thinking he was just bluffing, I had responded, “Maybe I’ll send my people.”

It was too late, much too late. I didn’t have any people with me, and my former student was still wrestling if not her decision to go to grad school, then her peanut-buttered bagel.

All the training and life experience I had as an intrepid reporter went out the window. (See, I’m writing clichés.)

I hand over the brass-like desk lamp fixture. Before I could ask my questions - “Where is golferdude? How do I know you’re not golferdude?" - the emissary disappears.

In my mind I’m yelling, “Tell golferdude to show his face or I’m writing that he’s a grade-A duffer.”

Too late, much too late.

My former student misses the entire exchange. I’m sure a part of her wants to believe me, but who knows with these young ‘uns.

She sits with me for another 20 minutes, feeling, I’m sure, rather conflicted. She wants to be polite and humor her aging prof; she wants to stay away from her addle-brained prof.

In the end, she leaves, taking the color-changing light cube with her. (Sorry, KermieD, Wiffleball tournament or not, you snooze, you lose.)

Note: Marvin49, I still have your fire-engine covered tie; golferdude, This is not the end of this.



golferdude's person: Who is this man holding the brass-like desk lamp?