My friend AJ and I were drinking a beer after work the other day, and the subject of “wild women” came up.

AJ said he once had a friend who had a problem with this type of woman.

“His name was Dusty Malone,” AJ said. “Did I ever tell you about him?”

“I don’t believe so, AJ. What was his problem with women?”

“Not women in general, just wild women. That was the only type of women he was ever attracted to.”

“What do you mean by ‘wild women’?”

“Unstable women. Women who run hot one day and freezing cold the next. Women who tell you they hear voices.”

“Do you mean crazy women?”

“Not exactly. I mean the kind of women who will turn a man’s mind into a quivering mass of night crawlers and make him feel like he’s been run over by a cement truck.”

“Sounds like you have had some experience with that type.”

“Let’s just say we’ve been acquainted before.” AJ frowned and took a big swallow of cold Corona before he continued:

“Anyway, Dusty had this older woman friend, name of Pearl. In between his struggles with these wild women he would go get counseling from Pearl. She was a professional counselor and I believe she did some part-time preaching, too, but since they were friends and neighbors, too, she would talk to Dusty about his woman trouble free of charge.”

“What would she tell him?”

“Mostly common sense things. Like he needed to stay grounded, not let the women he was attracted to become the driver of his bus and not rush into the deep water without getting to know the person first.”

“Sounds like good advice.”

“Well, it was. And Dusty really thought a lot of Pearl. She had three kids and a loving husband, too, and he used to tell me, ‘AJ, I need to quit fooling with these wild women and get myself a woman just like Pearl. A stable, common sense woman who won’t mess my mind up.’”

“Did he take her advice?”

“I don’t know if he ever did. Dusty left town a few years ago and I haven’t heard from him since. But here is what happened before he left town. Another one of these wild women had just broke his heart, and when he went to see Pearl, he found her husband sitting on the back porch. Husband didn’t look so good.”

“Where was Pearl?”

“Pearl was gone. She had run off with a guy who had been painting their house. Left her husband and their three kids, and the dude was heart-broken. Pearl’s husband told AJ he had never even seen it coming.”

“That’s some story, AJ.”

“I think that experience shook Dusty’s faith not just in women but in the world itself.”

“There’s a lesson to be learned in this story, AJ.”

“There surely is. And I’m going to need another one of these Coronas before I can even begin to attempt to figure out exactly what it is.”