…to call a woman who gave him her number.

Before the prevalence of MP3s and cellular phones, I used to frequent the Used Kids record store for all of my Alt-Country needs.  After a particularly fruitful trip, I decided to walk to the nearby McDonald’s for lunch.  On my way out of the store, which exits the customer blindly on to the High Street sidewalk, I bumped into a pretty blonde woman and dropped my CD.

We both apologized for the trouble and she quickly picked up my CD for me.

She then smiled.  “Are you heading for lunch?”

“Yes,” I responded.  “You?”

“Where are you going?”

“McDonalds, I guess.”

“You shouldn’t go there,” she said with a dismissive shake of her head.

“Oh?”

“No, you should really eat at the Pita Pit like I’m going to,” she said with a smile.

“But,” I said, not picking up on her hints.  “You see, I have a coupon for free fries…”

She sighed and smiled.  “Why don’t you join me for Pita Pit?  Tell you what: I’ll buy.”

Her interest in a lunch date then dawned on me and I nodded.  “I’d be glad to join you, but you shouldn’t have to pay for me.”

“Great,” she said and showed me to the Pita Pit.  “I’m Allie.”

“Pat, nice to meet you.”

She and I had a fine time eating and talking together for nearly 45 minutes, at which point she grabbed a pen from her purse.  Without my having to ask for it, she wrote down her number on a napkin and handed it to me.

“I have to go now,” she said, getting up from her seat, “but I hope we can do this again soon.”

“Me too,” I said, standing as she departed.

Thinking that being invited out for lunch by a woman and given her phone number meant that she was interested being called, I decided to call her a few days after we met.

The first time I called, I got her roommate.

“Allie’s not here,” she said, “can I take a message?”

“Yes, this is Pat, that guy who joined her for lunch the other day,” I said to the roommate.  “I’m just calling to see if she’d like to spend an evening with me this coming weekend.”

“Oh, I’ll give her the message,” the roommate said.  “Let me get your number.”

I waited a week to hear from Allie and heard nothing, so I decided to call her a second time.  This time, I got her answering machine.

“This is Pat, the guy from the Pita Pit, and if you have the time, I would like it if you’d spend an evening with me this coming weekend.  If you’d like that too, please get back to me.  Here’s my number again…”

Again, I heard nothing from her.

After another week passed with no response from her, I decided that she wasn’t interested and that I should leave her alone.  One month later, though, I was seeking another number in my address book when the napkin with her number on it fell out from between the pages.

“Why not?” I thought to myself as I dialed her number on a whim.

“Is Allie there please?” I asked as soon as someone answered the phone.

“Hold on,” the roommate said, only to return in a second or two.  “May I ask who’s calling?”

“I’m Pat,” I responded.  “I joined her for lunch a while back.  That’s how she’ll know me.”

“Oh,” the roommate said in slight annoyance, as though I was some weirdo who wouldn’t leave Allie alone.  “I don’t really know if she’s here or not, I just got home.  Let me check.”

“Okay.”

“Allie!” the roommate shouted, to then start whispering to someone in the room with her.  “(It’s that red-headed guy.)  Allie!” the roommate shouted again and returned her attention to the phone.  “She’s not here, can I take a message?”

“No thanks,” I responded in a puzzled tone and hung up the phone.

I sat in my apartment for a few minutes after the phone call and wondered what I’d done to spur such a drastic change in Allie’s demeanor.  I thought and thought until the answer finally struck me, at which point I snapped my fingers in realization.

I was calling her AND saying that I’d like to spend time with her, I realized.  Who’d want to date a man who’d do such things?

It was then that I decided to take a different approach to courtship.

…to eat at Wendy’s without being a pedophile.

On the way home one night, a friend and I stopped at a Wendy’s restaurant in a Columbus suburb called New Albany to have lunch.  Upon our arrival, we noticed a big yellow school bus in the parking lot and lamented the long wait we’d have to endure because of the inevitable flock of students we’d find there.  Our hope, since we didn’t know how long the bus had been there, was that the visiting children had already been helped and seated by the time we arrived.  As a result of this assumption, the friend and I decided to try Wendy’s and not seek out another place to have lunch.  Upon entering the restaurant we found two lines full of well-behaved kindergarteners, all of them ordering from a fixed menu which lessened the wait and commotion for all involved.  The friend and I no longer had reservations about staying there and sort of reveled in the idea that we’d appear to be massive kindergarteners while waiting in line right behind them.

As we waited in line to be served and watched them all order either a hamburger or a cheeseburger kid’s meal with a beverage, we also noticed that all of the children were getting plastic frog toys with their meals.  When it was finally my turn to order, with a grin I asked if I also had to order from the kindergarten menu.

“Yes,” the cashier responded with a smile.  “I can see that you’ll need a bib too.”

“I DO wonder, though,” I said after the friend and I laughed because of her comment, “if I could have one of the toys the other children received.”

The cashier laughed.  “Sure.  They’re typically for the Kid’s Meal, but you can have one with your regular meal,” she added and pointed to a glass box that housed all of the toys available.  “Which one did you want?”

“This frog toy actually jumps?!” I said after peering into the box for a second.  “Awesome.  I’ll have that one.”

Unbeknownst to me, I had chosen a toy that hadn’t yet been made available to the, err, under 12 public, so to get it for me the cashier had to head to the back of the restaurant and retrieve it from the stockroom.  When she returned, she had a toy for the friend as well as me and the food we’d ordered was ready to be placed on our trays.  Once the frog toys were also placed on the trays, the friend and I were able to depart the line and find seats.

As she was placing the frog toy on my tray, I noticed the cashier slip a small piece of butterscotch candy under the French fries I’d ordered.  Duly puzzled about the candy I was given, once we found a seat on the periphery of the seating area I asked the friend if he’d also been given candy.

“No,” he responded.  “You were given candy?”

“Yes,” I said and started to look at the sea children taking up the seats in the middle of the seating area.  “I wonder if it was the piece left over from when the children were ordering.  Maybe Wendy’s was expecting the children and had candy for them as an extra treat.”

“Maybe,” the friend responded.

Still curious about the candy, I tapped one of the children on the shoulder.  The little blonde girl I tapped turned around and looked at me.

“Did you get any candy?” I asked her, getting only a shaken head in response.  My question garnered more of a response from the teacher, however, whose head quickly shot up upon hearing it.

“They don’t need any candy,” the teacher quickly informed me, as though I was some creep who offered candy to little girls.

My eyes got big as I suddenly realized why the teacher reacted in such a way.  “Oh no,” I quickly said to her.  “You don’t understand.”

The teacher simply looked on with concern as I explained.  “You see I was given candy by the cashier and I naturally assumed that it was leftover from when the children had ordered.  I was simply curious if that was the case when I asked one of the children.

“You see?” I said and showed to toy I received to the teacher.  “I was also given a toy much like those each of the children received.”

The teacher looked relieved.  “Well you were very lucky to get a toy AND candy.  I wish we were as lucky as you were.”  She then turned around, no longer concerned about the threat I posed to the children.

One of the children noticed the toy when I showed it to the teacher and since the friend and I were by then deemed harmless by the teacher, he felt free to approach us because of it.  It seemed that having a cool toy that none of the other children had could incite envy in kindergarteners.  Who knew?

When some of the children were done with their lunch, lead by the boy who noticed my toy they approached the table where the friend and I were sitting.

“That’s a cool toy you got,” the brown-haired, white-skinned boy said while surrounded by four other boys and a girl.

“It is,” I slowly said with a smile and lifted the toy in my hands.  “And if you push this pump on the end of this tube, the froggy on the other end of the tube hops and hops.  Neat, huh?”

“Yeah,” the boy said with a smile, filled with awe.  It was as if he’d realized that the sweet, hopping frog that I received was much more interesting than the deck of frog memory cards he’d received.  “Wanna trade?” he then said, offering me the cards in his hands.

“Okay,” I said with a smile and handed him the hopping frog.  “Here you go.”

“Thanks!” the boy enthusiastically responded and placed the cards of our table.  “Do you have any more of the hoppy froggy?”

“I don’t…” I said in a matter of tact tone and quickly pointed across the table, “but Dave does.”

The children then lost all interest in me and rushed over to the friends side of the table.  “Dave,” another white boy with brown hair said as though they’d known each other for years, “wanna trade?”

Dave playfully paused and seemed to ponder the idea for a second.  He lead the children to believe that whether or not to trade was a hard decision for him to make, only to smile and throw up his hands in a small shrug.  “Sure.”

“Yes!” the boy said and switched the frog clock he’d gotten with Dave’s hoppy froggy.

We were out of interesting toys at that point and as a result, what appeal we had to the children was likewise diminished.  They stopped paying any attention to us and we were then able to finish our lunch.  Just as Dave and I were finishing what was left of our meals, a little, indian girl approached with a beverage in her hand.

She lifted the cup she was holding to show it to me.  “I got root beer.”

“Oh,” I said with a smile.  “Is it so delicious, or what?”

“Yes,” she responded and shyly grinned.  “It’s my favorite.”

“Good,” I said and lifted my drink.  “I got Dr. Pepper.”

“My mommy likes Dr. Pepper!” she happily responded.

“It’s good, huh?”

The little girl smiled with a closed mouth and quickly nodded.  She then looked over to the table where she once sat and started to walk back over to it.  “You’d better finish your lunch before we have to go,” the teacher standing next to the girl’s table said as the girl sat.

About five minutes after she’d left our table, the little girl returned with her toy.

“I got a frog clock,” she told me.

“That’s pretty neat,” I said to her.  “Are you going to have fun playing with that later?”

“Yeah,” she responded.  “I’m going to show it to my parents and share it with my little sister.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said with a smile.  “I think I’ll do the same with the deck of cards that I got.  I’ll share them with MY sister.”

“Oh,” she said and leaned over to look at the cards in front of me on the table.  “Wanna trade?”

I was taken aback by her request because she’d just gotten done explaining how she’d share her toy.  “You really want these cards instead of that clock.”

“Yeah,” she responded while nodding.

“Okay,” I said and handed her the cards as she put the frog clock on the table.

It didn’t strike me until later that given the girl’s strong interest in it, I totally could’ve coaxed her into my van with that clock.

…to make topical conversation at the post office.

Back in October of 2008, the country was in the midst of a hotly contested presidential election.  I needed to sign for some letters being held at the post office during that October, so I headed there on my lunch break.  On my way into the Post Office, I held the door for a middle-aged woman who smiled at me and offered her thanks.

“Thank you so much,” she said with a big smile, as though surprised to see such manners in this day and age.

She and I had to stand next to each other at the counter for while I had to sign various receipts before getting my mail, she had to wait to tell the postal employee what mail she’d come to get.  ”I’m here to pick up the mail for the Ohio Republican Party,” she said to the postal employee.

“Uh oh.  You’re not going to try to influence my vote, are you?” the postal employee responded with a smile.  The woman in her late thirties then laughed with the woman from the Republican party.  ”I’m still undecided.”

I looked up and over at the two in slight confusion, thinking that the two women were joking around and deciding to play along.  Done with my letter signing, I picked up my letters and turned my body to face them.  ”What’s to decide?” I said and smiled as I held up my right hand as though weighing an option.  ”Pure evil?” I said and raised my left hand much higher as if to weigh another option.  ”Barack Obama.”

The woman from the republican party looked shocked as she took her bin of mail off of the counter.  Her mouth remained open in disbelief as she walked past me to exit the post office.

“I think you freaked her out,” the postal employee said to me.

“She had to know that I was kidding,” I said, perplexed.  ”Besides, it was hardly the most incendiary rhetoric.”

As I exited the post office to go to the parking lot, the woman from the Republican party saw me from her car.  She continued to look at me in open mouthed disbelief as she departed.

…to explain depth of character.

I had a girlfriend once who got back together with me a month after we’d first broken up.  I took her out after we decided to get back together and while at a Chinese place for lunch, we sat in a booth and talked until conversation hit a pause.
“Pat?”  Elaine asked me after the pause.  “Do you think I’m the most beautiful woman you ever seen?”
Not picking up on the fact that sometimes people just go fishing for compliments and just want to be told what they want to hear, I sat there for a second and thought about what I wanted to say in response.  Elaine wasn’t the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen at the time, but that wasn’t all that mattered to me in a relationship.  It struck me that any normal person would want to be considered the most beautiful individual another has ever met, rather than simply being judged on looks alone.  In being the most beautiful individual the other has found, it seemed to me, it meant that the other has found many important traits in you that can’t be found in anyone else and it’s those most appreciated traits that will hold the interest of another more than simply being attractive ever will.  If that’s not the case, what’s to stop someone from dumping you if ever they met someone having nothing to offer but more beauty?  Wasn’t the point of worrying about how attractive you are to others, after all, getting people to like you more than they like alternatives?
Certainly I wasn’t the best-looking guy anyone would ever meet, but I always hoped that a woman, rather than lie about my looks, would instead cite her appreciation for the traits that she found important and only I held.  It would be the unique combination of traits held, I decided, that would make my company favorable to that of any other man.
Lastly, it occurred to me, weren’t women always complaining about how shallow men were and demeaning it was to women to see them only as objects who offered no substance?  Surely Elaine would appreciate that I was no such man.
“You’re easily the most beautiful individual I’ve ever met,” I responded.
“That’s not what I asked,” Elaine said.  “In other words, you don’t think I’m the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.”
“But it’s better to be the most beautiful individual because that means that you are more to me than good looks,” I said, thinking that once I explained what I meant she’d appreciate the fact that I liked her for more than superficial reasons.  “It’s your inherent quality that will hold my interest in you.”
“Maybe it was a mistake for us to get back together,” Elaine responded.
“No, don’t you see?” I asked, and once again tried to explain because if she’d just see that she had no reason to worry about my level of interest in her, she’d not think it was a mistake to get back with me.  “What’s holding my interest in you is not only your loveliness, but also your personality, sense of humor, likes and dislikes.”
“Lovely?” she said, seemingly ignoring what good I noticed about her and instead stressing upon the least of what I stated.  “You don’t think I’m hot?”
“I think using the term hot to describe another is demeaning because it conveys the idea people are only getting noticed because of their level of attractiveness and the rest is unimportant.  To devalue another due to a trait over which they had little control is more insulting than simply saying they’re not hot.”
She looked blankly at me for a second.  “So, I’m not hot?”
“Also,” I said, thinking that my thoughtful explanations mattered to her and not picking up on the fact that Elaine was stressing so much on superficiality because she was afraid that she lacked the inherent quality needed to hold my interest.  “The term lovely means ‘gracefully beautiful,’ which not only cites beauty, but also an ingrained sense of dignity and personal value.”
“So you think I’m a beauty?” she responded.
I sat there for a second with my mouth open and eyes blinking in confusion that she not only failed to grasp or find significant the most meaningful parts of what I’d just said, but also didn’t glean from it that I did in fact find her attractive.  “Yes, you’re beauty.”
“Good,” she said with a smile.  “You’re not bad yourself.”

“Thanks,” I said, assuming that the rest of what I’d said to her was obvious to her and everyone, hence her apparent lack of interest in it.  Everyone must know about the idea that people are more than just looks or social associations, I was convinced, and their substance must be what really matters in relationships.  If such ideas were foreign to her, I thought to myself, she would have asked and gotten clarification so she could have a better appreciation of them.  The fact that she didn’t say a word about it, however, and instead acted as though my comments were fairly pedestrian made me think that she already knew about them and they weren’t unusual.

Besides, I thought, if I wanted to have friends or get a job, I had to assume the best of people and assume that they knew what I was talking about if they neglected to question me.  Since it struck me that I wasn’t saying anything interesting if people responded with indifference, I decided to try to be smarter around people.

Much pedantry and condecension ensued. Jobs and dates did not.

…to talk to people without losing any of his teeth.

Because I didn’t have a regular opportunity to converse with many people until recently, I can often be found saying the smoothest things in conversation with people now. When the uttered comments would only make sense in the context I’d not yet revealed to the listener, much confusion would ensue.

- “She’s attractive until she wears her clothes,” I said while describing a coworker of mine, much to the shock and confusion of the person listening.

There was a woman at work who was absolutely breathtaking, but made the most unfortunate apparel choices on casual days. On most work days, the professional dress code stipulates that capri pants, unreasonably high heeled shoes and sleeveless shirts are not to be worn. Such a code leads people to wear more comfortable, yet less fashionable, attire during regular work days, giving people a choice as to what to wear, but limiting what they can choose. On casual days, such limits are loosened and people are allowed to wear their own choice of clothing.

One casual day, I was walking about the building with another coworker of mine when we walked past the breathtaking woman. The other coworker asked who she was.

“Oh she’s (whatever her name was),” I said in a matter-of-fact tone. I then thought to myself that she would have ironically looked more attractive had she adhered to the work code instead of her own choices, but simply said: “She’s attractive until she wears her clothes.”

- “Is that guy straight?”

There’s a person I know who’s last name is Straight. One day, I thought I’d seen him talking to a woman I also knew, but wasn’t certain since I’d for the most part forgotten what he looked like. What’s more, I thought as I approached the woman who’d been talking to him, I was uncertain of his first name. I was still curious about the identity of the person, however, and pretty sure his last name was what I thought it was, but simply asked the woman: “Is that guy straight?”

She laughed and laughed. “No,” she said to me, “and no.”

“I see,” I responded, getting more information about the guy than I was expecting and then worried that I’d be seen as inappropriate by the woman. “What I meant was…”

“I know what you meant,” she responded and continued laughing.

- “Now I don’t have to pet the cat at the gay bookstore anymore.”

I used to have a neighbor who’d have me over to chat every now and then. She had a boyfriend, so my visits were less than frequent and I had ample time to take strolls about the Short North in between visits to her apartment. I like cats, though never enough to get one of my own, so I would have to head off somewhere if the urge to pet a cat was ever incited in me. The only public place I could just enter and pet their cat that I knew of was a place called “The Open Book” (A bookstore that caters to homosexuals), so if the mood struck me and I was walking that direction, I’d go there to visit their cat.

One night the neighbor knocked on my door and wanted me to come to her place and see what she’d just gotten. When I got there, I found that she’d gotten a new kitten and started to play with it. As I did that, I looked around her place and noticed that there were no longer any pictures of her boyfriend hanging on the walls. I also noticed that his car wasn’t in the parking lot with the same regularity, so I started to wonder if getting a cat was a reflection of her loneliness and her having me over was to find out if I liked more about her than the cat. It struck me that she could have been trying to gauge my compatibility with her, so I told her how glad I was that she invited me over to visit her.

“Now I don’t have to pet the cat at the gay bookstore anymore.”

She didn’t have me over very often after my comment and on top of that, the bookstore moved.

- “I won’t be too excited if you call.”

Time was I used to look for dates and when I met a woman I found interesting, I’d suggest that we get to know each other better and give her my phone number. My plight, so I would be told, was that I’d try too hard when meeting these women and such behavior would scare them away from ever trying to spend time with me. Ever fearful of coming on too strong and ruining any opportunity I’d have to get to know seemingly interesting women, I’d try to watch what I said so as to maximize my chances of seeing them again. I would have liked nothing more than to tell women how much I looked forward to getting to know them and how I hoped that we’d get along well so we’d at least get to be good friends, but to do such a thing meant to risk frightening them into not wanting to get to know me. As a result, I’d have to tone down my expressions of interest.

The problem was that I had no idea what passed for the appropriate amount of interest to show in someone you’ve just met and what’s more, I had no way of knowing if overzealousness was the real reason women weren’t spending time with me. I could only go on what seemed reasonable to me, but doing that only lead to other problems. The whole idea of people being too frightened to simply meet somewhere and get to know another was itself unreasonable, as to make a well reasoned case to dismiss the company of another demands exploring their identity, so finding a reasonable course of action under those circumstances was daunting to say the least. Catering to the unreasonable nature of others to get them to simply act in a way that could benefit themselves seemed odd, as the whole idea reeked of offering more attention to those who deserved it the least, but I had little alternative. If I wanted to meet friends, it seemed to me, this was how I was going to have to do it.

I was at a store one day when I met a lovely and seemingly interesting woman running the cash register there. Would she like it, I asked her after we talked for a few minutes, if she and I were to meet somewhere to get to know one another? She responded that doing such a thing might be fun, so I started to write my number down of a piece of receipt paper. While writing I thought that I’d already be showing a lot of interest in her by suggesting that we meet to talk and then handing her my number, so I’d better tone down my interest if I didn’t want to frighten her. “Here’s my number,” I said and handed her the paper. I then quickly thought of ways to tell her that I wouldn’t become obsessed with her if she called or do nothing except sit by the phone until she did, but simply said:

“I won’t be too excited if you call.”

I never heard from her.

…to stop short of using semaphore to talk to a woman.

Before I met my wife, I would try to find dates. During that time I met a vast array of women and because I didn’t know how “normal” people were supposed to act around others, many awkward situations ensued. After such, I would get left alone by people I’d meet. Due to being alone in my apartment on most weekends, I would frequently take strolls about Downtown Columbus to get out of the house and avoid becoming stir crazy.

While out on one walk, I went to a coffee shop and struck up a conversation with the woman who worked behind the counter. She (Maria) seemed nice and interesting, so I invited her to meet me for dinner sometime. She happily accepted and we exchanged numbers. She called me a few days after I met her and arranged to meet me at a Downtown restaurant for dinner on the following day.

I’d often get told that I was left alone by the people I’d meet because I don’t talk to people the way normal people do, so I had that on my mind when I met with Maria. Since I was told I ask questions that are “too personal and forward” and “try too hard” when getting to know people, I decided to buy a deck of Conversation Cards and bring them with me on the date. What’s more, I cherry-picked all the questions that asked what I wanted to know to make certain that they’d be asked early in the date, but asked without worry that I’d get seen as being too personal for asking.

My plan seemed to work as happy conversation ensued for the whole evening and she and I were able find out interesting things about one another. At the end of the night, I invited Maria to spend the coming Saturday with me.

She accepted and we had a fine time the whole day. Maria even made certain to bring me to a specific mall so her friend could see and approve of me, which her friend did. While on the way back to her house in the car, however, Maria noticed the CD of Cajun music I was playing.

“This is happy music,” she said in a somewhat disappointed tone. “Happy people like happy music.”

“I guess that’s true about music, yes, and I am happy,” I responded, “but you’re happy too, aren’t you?”

She paused to think for a minute. “I guess I’m happy.”

When I got Maria to her door, she threw her arms around me and kissed me repeatedly. In an excited tone, she then told me that she wanted me to meet all of her friends on the coming Friday.

“Don’t worry,” she added. “They’ll all like you. Wait ’til they see that I have a new boyfriend, though I don’t really like the word boyfriend much anymore.”

“Huh?” I responded.

“Nothing,” she responded. “Thank you for walking me home.”

“You’re very welcome,” I responded. “I look forward to seeing you again this Friday.”

“Me too.”

For the week that followed, however, she didn’t return any of my increasingly concerned daily calls and finally on the Friday she and I were to meet up with her friends, I left a message.

“I can only assume you’re okay and don’t know what else to do, so if I don’t hear from you after this call, I’ll leave you alone. I guess I can take a hint.”

She finally called back on that Friday. “I don’t want you to hate me, but I’m not looking for a relationship right now.”

“Oh?” I responded. “Well that’s okay, I guess. We can just be friends and still hang out.”

“No,” she responded. “I’ve had a bad time with new people and don’t want to have any new people around me right now.”

“But,” I said baffled. “Am I like any new person you’ve ever met?”

“No.”

“So why then pass on my friendship?”

“Lets just say that the fact that you’re a man doesn’t help matters,” she responded.

“Am I like any MAN you’ve ever met?” I asked.

“No, but it’s not about you or anything you’ve done.”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “It’s never about what I’ve done with people.”

“Thank you for being cool about this and not getting mad.”

“Eh,” I responded, realizing that there was nothing I could do or say to change her mind. “Happens all the time.”

The longer I went without a companion, especially after Maria stated as much, the less I felt that what I did mattered to anyone and thus the less confident I was that I’d actually find a companion.

Thank goodness my actions finally mattered most to someone (the wife), but I’m always confused by the situations before then where how I acted was seemingly the LEAST important attribute of mine to people I’d meet. (And to their own detriment, no less.)

…to buy iced coffee in Kentucky without lying.

I used to go to Tim Horton’s every Monday to get an Iced coffee. I’d regularly talk to the staff there and before long they’d know my name as well as my usual order, to start making my drink as soon as they saw me enter the building. They’d smile and ask me what was new with my life and if there was time, I’d tell them everything they wanted to know. (Usually more.)

They don’t have Tim Horton’s in Kentucky, though, so when down there visiting the wife’s family,  I’d have to settle for Dairy Queen’s Iced Coffee equivalent.

“You really like that Iced Coffee?” Brenda, the Dairy Queen worker asked me.

“I do,” I responded with a smile. “I have one all the time at Tim Horton’s.”

“Is he related to the Horton family up there on Richmond Road?” she then asked me.

“No,” I responded, a little puzzled. “Tim Horton’s is a Canadian based donut and coffee chain of stores and there’s one in Columbus.”

“Oh,” she responded with a smile of understanding, “from what part of Canada are you?”

I stood there and blinked in confusion for a second. “Manitoba,” I then responded, deciding to just agree with the woman who clearly wasn’t listening to what I was saying.

“Oh it’s beautiful country up there,” the woman then happily responded.

“Isn’t it,” I replied with a smile.

The wife thought it was slightly callous of me to let the Dairy Queen worker believe we were from Canada and told me as much as we headed to the car.

“When people aren’t listening to what I’m saying and it’s just small talk anyway, it’s just easier to agree with them in order to get through the conversation,” I told her.

“Well it still seems mean,” she responded.

I didn’t want to unknowingly be callous to others, so the next day at work I headed to my Tim Horton’s and asked the workers there if I’d ever been rude to them.

“Not at all,” one responded after hearing my question.

“How about you, Rosemary,” I asked another worker there, “have I ever been rude to you.”

“I’m doing fine today,” she responded with a smile, “and you?”

…to look at ice cream without being a creep.

I went to the grocery one day for some ice cream and once I chose my flavor, I headed for the check-out lane with the shortest line. In front of me in line was this woman who also had a carton of ice cream to purchase. I was curious about what flavor she’d chosen, since I had finally decided on Burgundy Cherry after poring over the decision, and started to look over her shoulder.  To her, however, it of course made me appear to be gazing at her ample bosom.

The woman turned around and saw me looking, to then smile at me.

“Uhh,” I said to her, thinking of something to say. “What kind of ice cream did you get?”

“Chocolate chip.”

“What’s your favorite flavor?”

“Chocolate chip.”

“I see,” I said and paused for a second. “So, what do you do for a living?”

“I work in real estate,” she responded, “for a company that owns malls.”

“Oh,” I responded. “What’s going to happen to the City Center Mall?”

“That’s confidential.”

“If I guess what’s going to happen and am right, will you nod?”

“Okay,” she replied.

“Are they going to turn it into a mixed-use with condos on the top floor and stores on the bottom?”

She nodded.

“Wow” I responded. “When is that going to happen?”

“That’s confidential.”

I smiled. “Okay. Well, I hope it happens soon because I’ll be off to Dublin soon.”

“Oh?” she responded.

“Yep. It’s where my intended will be working.”

The smile on her face disappeared upon her hearing about a future wife and the situation between us then became awkwardly silent, so I started to put my purchases on the conveyer belt.

As is often the case with any normal guy, I would have just noticed her ice cream flavor in passing and not said a word to the woman had her breasts not gotten in the way and forced me to talk to her.