True Story©… Meet-Ugly



     It should come as no surprise to anyone that I truly detest rom-coms…

     Perhaps it is irrational of me, and the fact that they keep making them suggests that SOMEONE is enjoying this shit so I am powerless to stop them.  A companion issue is my own behavior when I am (even recognizably) irrationally against something.
Not to let you in on anything more than you need to know about me – even if you have been reading these stories for the past several years – but I am a pretty funny dude sometimes.  I mean, I joke about things in poor taste that likely should not be joked about, but I understand the greater objective idea of what is humorous.

Never mind that though.

     As I get older, I become more of a homebody.  Hell, all my cool stuff is here!  All my toys and electronics, books and a firepit…  And we got doggies!  Who needs to go outside?
Despite this, sometimes my wife leans on me to go out and hang with my friends sometimes.  This neglects that a lot of my friends are a lot like me and are at the house with their stuff and their puppies too.  We’ll link up on the Playstation network or something.  I don’t love them any less, but outside is…  well…  outside!  Oh, and I can count on my fingers the number of times I have had alcohol since July, so there’s that.

     Of course there is only so much resistance to the woman pushing me out the door before I eventually HAVE to give in.

What’s that thing the kids say when they go out and have a good time?  “It’s gon’ be a movie” or something like that.  Suggestive that an entertaining time will be had by onlookers as well as participants.
Well a good friend of mine recently had a birthday meet-up at a local bar and despite my recent aversion to one of my oldest vices, I strapped on the good sneakers and went out, telling him “it’s gon’ be a rom-com” to his visible confusion.

     The day comes…  I offer to be DD for reasons described above and we arrive at the bar.  Other party-goers of all ages and genders file in and a good time is being had by all.
I’m not the host or even the star of the show, but I know quite a few people in attendance, so I am floating about the room having a good ol’ time as one should.  Out of nowhere, the bartender comes over…

 

Bartender: “What’re ya drinkin’?”

Me: “Just water, you knew that though”

Bartender: “Well the young lady there has instructed me to bring you one of whatever you’re having.”

 

He points down to the other end of the bar.  Smiling is a not-unattractive young lady.

 

Me: “I’m flattered, but you can tell her I’m DD’ing tonight.”

Bartender: “Okay mate.”

Me: “Thank you.”

 

     Let the record show that I am notoriously horrible at reacting when someone is shooting their shot with me.  I am a happily married man and always feel that the very visible ring on my finger is a deterrent enough.  I even often fiddle with it when I am bored.
For what it is worth, though, I had not even actually spoken to this woman.  I’d hoped that declining her drink offer would preclude me from having to run away from her with my fingers in my ears screaming “I got a WIFE!!!”

 

     Nope™

 

A while later, I am up and around the bar and returned to my spot in the corner at the end of the bar to sit down, I’m fiddling with my phone and hoping time goes by quickly so I can get home to my wife and dogs.


Bartender: “S’cuse me again.”

Me: “Yeah?”

 

He’s holding a plate of chicken wings…

 

Me: “Um…  I didn’t order any food though.”

Bartender: “Well she figured since you weren’t drinking that she’d send you some wings.”

 

     Holy shit, this is a meet-cute!
Put a pin in that, I need to get this bartender and five flats and bleu cheese out of my face real quick.

 

Me: “Tell her again, I’m flattered but no thanks.”

Bartender: “Okay”

 

     I dropped a fiver in his tip jar for the continued inconvenience and interruption to him just trying do his job.

 

     Okay, so now back to meet-cute…
Y’all know how in rom-coms there is always some whimsical situation that brings the item-to-be couple into one another’s purview?  That is a “meet-cute.”  We will ignore for the time being the irony of my knowing so damned much about a genre that I really hate, because this woman has tried a real-life meet-cute on me by sending the lone dude at the bar a drink, then by sending him five flats and bleu cheese when the drink didn’t work and--… oh shit, she is over here now!


Suitress: “Well hello.”

Me: “Hi”

Suitress: “Aren’t you just a hard book to read?”

Me: “Pardon?”

Suitress: “I figured a drink might get you talking but the bartender said you were designated driving.”

Me: “Right”

Suitress: “So I figured I’d feed you.”

Me: “Yeah, I’ve seen that meme.”

Suitress: “Heh”

 

Bear in mind, y’all, I am nervously stroking my beard with my left hand.  I tend to do this habitually even when sitting alone in the house, but this display should make it readily obvious that I am attached due to the ring on it.

 

Me: “So how goes it?”

Suitress: “Well, I kinda thought you were cute and hate to see you at this party all alone.”

Me: “A-HA!!!  Now I know you lyin’.  Not even my wife calls me ‘cute,’ who put you up to this shit?”

Suitress: “Huh--…  Wife?”

 

[Phlip note: left hand…  beard…  At this point she sees it, she is just ignoring it.]

 

Me: “Yes…  I’m here to celebrate the homie and get my peoples home safe since I don’t really drink anymore.”

Suitress: “And your wife?”

Me: “Wants me to go outside and have a good time with my friends.”

Suitress: “…  and new friends?”

Me: “You tryna make friends with my wife?”

Suitress: You were the one I sent a drink to.”

Me: “Yeah…  No…  I rather enjoy being married and the appearance of impropriety endangers that.  Friends who are women before I met her are known.  New ones need to be known as well.”

 

     Thank God, she finally took the hint that it just ain’t about to go down and her meet-cute wasn’t about to work.

 

     It’s 11:30, last call in NC is at 1:45 for a 2am legal cutoff.  Unless someone in my charge gets unruly and asked to leave, I am stuck in this party until 2.  For the remainder of the night, she stink-mugged me as she spoke to her friends WHILE stink-mugging me   .

     2am comes and I pile three drunk assholes into my Subaru station wagon and get each home safely before returning home myself.
I would wake up in the morning and scroll through posts on the event page on The BookFace™ before happening on her thanking the homie for inviting her and her girls out, “even if that one dumb n**ga decided to go home to his wife” to the laugh-reacts of her friend.
I started to respond telling her to replace the bald-ass tires on her Altima before trying to break up happy homes, but I had made a promise to relax on the supervillainy.

 

…  I better not ever see her ass in public, though.

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