Man it's been a while since anyone has posted. One this week. We must all be busy.
Every Saturday, one of us will post a blog post from our past in order to let you really get to know us... and laugh at us. Once again, as the glue that holds the writing on this blog together, I present you my second classic post. This was a little story I wrote called "Dragons, Magic and Excessive Spillage".
I wrote this story a few days after it happened. It was so unbelievable, I knew I had to immediately record it. Trust me, everything in this story is true.
So its July, a few weeks after my birthday and I was feeling a little low. Jack diddly was going on; there was a sense of nothingness around me. One day at work, this cute, cute girl named Megan came in to get some furniture through the finance company I work for. In no time, I found myself flirting with her. Now, I’ve been told I am a natural flirt, and I’ve been told I could have an eency weency itty bitty bit of charm, so if *I* am noticing that I've turned it on, I think I must be flirting pretty heavy. But she is reciprocating, so I keep going. At the end of our chat, we set a meeting for the next day so she can sign her contracts. The second she walked away, I started freaking out as to what to do. I was obviously smitten. Should I ask her out? Or do I not risk the rejection? The next day, I manned up, showed that ounce of confidence I can have and asked her to dinner.
She said no. She was taken.
BUT, she had someone she wanted to hook me up with. That in itself freaked me out because I had only talked to Megan for about an hour or so up until that point. But she was good looking, and I’m a guy (libido rules all!), so I said ok. Fast forward to date night. My date was a 20 year old 5’5” blonde with gorgeous fake green eyes (contacts) named Jessie Lynn (first/middle, not first/last name) that just moved back in with her parents in Bossier City (from Texas). The game plan was dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s then up the street to the Family Fun Center (think Celebration Station; go-karts, arcade, batting cages, putt putt, etc.). I’ve got a fresh fade; I’m rockin’ the gel; I’m rockin’ the contacts; I’m wearing this cool grey polo with some nice khakis; and dah-lin, I’m oozing machismo. My ounce of confidence has been multiplied by millions. I have a million ounces of confidence. A million. I go into the night thinking “first impression” and “if I fuck up, I’m never seeing her again, so why not have fun with it”. Boy did I not realize how ‘fun’ my night was going to end up.
Dinner started well. We introduced ourselves, I told a few jokes, I had her smiling. My ego, as you could guess, was inflating… until our waiter dropped my glass of water on my shoulder. He didn’t trip, he wasn’t carrying anything other than my glass of water, but somehow on the exchange from hand to table, it slipped out and right on my shoulder. I was doused. But I made a joke, laughed it off and I eased myself, the waiter and most importantly, my date. Dinner continued, and went fine… until, while cleaning our table, our waiter dropped her half-eaten plate all over her. She felt humiliated, especially because she could tell I was holding back a tidal wave of laughter. But I made another joke and eased the situation. Then, I did the cheap-o thing and weaseled out of there with a free meal, due to excessive spillage.
We went back to her place so she could change. She lived right by the restaurant so it was a short drive. I was sitting in the living room, waiting on her, when her parents came home from wherever they were. I immediately panicked, because that was one situation that could turn ugly quick. I was happy that they at least KNEW their daughter was on a date, and I was that guy, because random guy + empty house with daughter (generally) = pain, lots and lots of pain. But calmly, dad sat down on the chair next to the couch I was on, showing no signs of anger or malice. I was a little eased as I began to mentally prepare myself for the stereotypical, as-seen-on-TV “what do you want to do with your life” speech.
Instead, I got magic.
Her dad opened our conversation with “look what I found behind your ear” and pulled out a quarter. I was floored. He began to tell me about the wonders of magic. “Sleight of hand is the most powerful tool any man can have.” He pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket and showed me two magic tricks. I didn’t know how to react, so I just went along with it. Eventually, during the middle of trick #3, Jessie Lynn came down and stopped her dad. She was definitely embarrassed. She grabbed my arm as hard as she could and dragged me outside so we could go. On the way to the car, the conversation went a little like this:
Her: I’m soooo sorry. I think he had been drinking. My dad can be weird.
Me: Yeah, he is a little weird.
Her: You aren’t supposed to agree with me!
Me: Hey now, I only agreed because I know about weird dads. If that was my dad and you, it would’ve been worse.
Her: I doubt it. Your dad isn’t an amateur magician that likes to show off to his daughter’s dates.
Me: No, but my dad is an amateur drunk that likes to do hula dances for his son’s dates.
Her: (laughing) Hula dances? You can’t be serious.
Me: I’m not serious. (pause) He doesn’t drink.
Her: (laughing)
Me: But if he did….. (and I did some sort of drunken hula dance)
(While she laughs, we get in the car)
Her: Thanks, I feel a lot better. You really know how to run damage control.
(And then she kissed me on the cheek)
Me: JACKPOT!
(Yes, I did actually say jackpot out loud.)
-------
We laughed some more and made our way to the Family Fun Center. On the agenda there was go-karts, mini-golf and some friendly competitive arcading. We start with the go-karts. They were fast, fun and she whipped my ass. I don’t know if it was the karts having different speeds (which you know they do) or a natural NASCAR-like instinct that she had, but she lapped me. And I got to hear about that afterwards. But it was ok, cause I had planned on getting my win back at mini-golf. And it would feel oh so sweet.... except she dropped the ultimate bomb on me: “I’ve never played mini-golf before.”
?!? How in the…? How could she have never played mini-golf before!? But, I took that as the perfect opportunity for the classic ‘let me show you how to play’ move. So, still reeking of esteem, I set to slyly use this situation to my advantage. We make our way to the first hole. I did some cheesy ‘don’t stand like this’ poses that don’t really go over well, and hit a nice smooth shot. “See what I did, nice and easy,” I told her. She stepped up to the tee, placed her ball down and got ready to hit. I stood behind her contemplating if I should do the ‘get behind her and show her how to hold the club’ move (cause it's all in the hips), and right as I was deciding that I’m not THAT cool or smooth, she took a hard back swing…..
Right to the jewels.
I went down. Hard. Fast. I’ve been clobbered in the cahones before, but this clubbing couldn’t have come quicker and more compact. I had a lot of quick decisions to make. Do I curse? Do I grab my little buddy and shake him healthy? Do I ask her to kiss it and make it better? Do I ask for ice? Do I tough it out? Or do I talk in a really high voice to make fun of what happened? I, of course, chose the latter.
After brushing myself off, we finish all 18 holes with me DOMINATING! Unfortunately, every time I tried to gloat, she would make a “don’t make me nut shot you again” comment or gesture. So we had a good time making fun of it.
In a weird moment, as we were heading back inside, some girl shot Jessie Lynn a dirty look. I mean, it was a nasty, filthy look. I thought nothing of it as we headed inside.
So we started arcading. It wasn’t necessarily anything other than us trying to spend another 30 minutes to an hour having fun. We picked games that were simple (like skeet ball) to just get some more potential QT in. All things considered, all wackiness aside, it was going great for a first date. Near the end when we didn’t have any tokens left, we went to turn our tickets in. We had 115. Unfortunately, there was this cute little dragon she wanted that cost 150. Since we didn’t have enough, she decided to just go ahead and save the tickets and give them to her little brother. It was time for her to hit the bathroom and we would head back home. I had a different idea.
I sprinted to the nearest token machine and put a dollar in. I found the classic spin and stop light game (that I wish I could remember what it was called, I know you remember it, it has the little light bulbs that went around and had four stop buttons). I hit 8, 10, 10, 8. I sprinted back to the prize counter, turned in my tickets for the dragon and sprinted to the car to hide it. I don’t know how long she was in the bathroom, but when I walked back inside, she was walking around looking for me. I told her I ran to the bathroom too and we headed out.
When we got back to her place, we sat in the car and chatted. During the middle of a conversation about lord knows what, I reached behind her seat and pulled out the dragon. The look on her face was magical. I knew I was in. I knew the potential that we had there. I thought the night was mine. In fact, the exact thought that went through my head, “If for some reason this actually did end up being the girl I married, what a great story for our first date.” And even though everything was telling me no; even though my natural instinct is to shy away; even though you know I could NEVER make the first move; even though you know how absolutely scared I was; I decided I was going to go in for a kiss. I leaned in, closed my eyes, parted my lips and met her…
Plush.
I had kissed the dragon. What a dejection. My body immediately went numb. After such a wonderful night, I blew it by going against everything I know. I was a moron, I was an idiot. How could I even think that this girl could ever like me? How could I think I had a chance? My best is never even close. I was self-doubting, self-depreciating, self-loating, self-pitying…
“I’m a lesbian.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. But I’m a lesbian.”
“Wait… what?”
“I’m so sorry Chad. That girl that shot us the dirty look, that was my high school girlfriend. She stopped me in the bathroom and berated me because she felt like I was betraying her. And honestly, I felt a little like I was betraying myself. I’ve been a lesbian almost all my life. I’ve had two boyfriends, but never had sex with them. Near the end of high school I just found I was attracted to girls… When Megan set us up, she had been hounding me about trying guys. She’s been my best friend for years, and has always supported me, but she has always tried to get me to try guys. And then, on a whim, she called me up and begged me to go out with you. She said, ‘I found some guy you’ll love. Just give him a try. If you do this, I’ll stop bugging you about it.’ So I had to. I just wanted to get her off of my back… I’m soooo sorry. I wanted to tell you. I should’ve told you, but the night was going so well I—“
“It’s ok.”
We sat in an awkward five second silence until I chimed in.
“You know, at least I can take solace in the fact that Megan thought I could turn a gay girl straight. I mean, that’s a compliment in itself.”
“And you almost did it. I did have such a great time.”
“So did I.”
“We can still hang out. I’d love to be friends.”
“That would be alright with me. I mean, if I need someone to help me hone my drunken hula skills I know who to turn to.”
And she laughed. We exchanged a few more pleasantries; she got out of the car and went inside. I sat for a second in front of her house in silence. It was a helluva night. I drove home, still in sort of a stunned surreal state, not sure what to do next. I pulled up to my apartment, stepping inside, grabbed my bottle of Makers Mark whiskey and poured a glass. For the rest of the evening, I sipped on my glass watching The Office until I fell asleep.
And that may be the craziest, oddest night of my life.
