so im normally a clumsy, awkward idiot when it comes to social situations. The words witty and charming rarely coincide with the word todd. but sometimes brett myers will have a 3 for 3 day at the plate with 3 rbis and 2 runs scored, and sometimes the words witty charming, outgoing, pleasant, humorous and talented will all intersect on one night with the fella's writing youre reading right now. that night happened to be friday night. i somehow became the man for a night. this is how it happened.
i got off work at a little after 8pm friday night in west chester. i made the decision to go to psu for homecoming weekend, i didnt really have anything else going on and id like to see the festivities up there. so i shower and im on the road by 9, get there around midnight and park near my brother, cj's apartment. im planning on hanging out with him, but his text informs me he's already "so drunk" and back at his apartment. thats cool with me, i can meet up with my cousin who is up for the weekend also. cj says i have a couch spot though for when i come back. so the night progresses. i meet up with sean, my cousin and we go to a bar, the cell block. for those psu readers you already know the atmosphere, for non psu-ers its a mix between a club atmosphere on the middle level and two bar-ish type atmospheres on the upper and lower floors. anyway we walk in and i am immediately chatted up by a dude from my high school who appears quite drunk and begins talking about things from when we were literally 8 years old playing little league. i am in no mood for that type of conversation, especially 0 drinks into the night, well my night. but while talking to him i notice a girl i used to work with some time ago. she appears to know him too.
a little about 'the girl' by what i shall refer to her here on. we worked together a short time at the lube and when i first met her i thought she was really cute, almost unapproachable cute, but there was absolutely no vibe between us. i thought she was probably a bitch and she probably thought, rightfully, that i was a loser. we worked together a little more and we saw each other randomly sometimes and i began to notice she was not the bitch i had thought originally at all. in fact it became quite the opposite. the whole reason for me even thinking that in the first place was her complaining to either another waitress or to the kitchen about something the first time i saw her, then she said something to me i think implying i wasnt busy or something of that nature. i think i rushed the judgement then and now looking back on it i definitely did because i now work in a restaurant, hooray, and know the pressure one feels. anyway, after getting to know her and conversing, etc. I began to notice something. I cannot read this girl at all. I never had any idea what was going on in her head. This is why, and im sure everyone knows this type of person,… shes the type of person that almost always gives a warm smile, or an (almost over-)enthusiastic greeting to everytime yout see them. They seem like an outgoing person in general too, so…youre left wondering what the enthusiasm is for…is it the way they are to everyone, or is this some sort of gestures only I am receiving, or is the greeting almost the same for everyone but I am a little different, maybe on a slightly higher tier of friendship level….eventually I get tired of thinking about what the gestures mean and I assume its for everyone and move on. I cant stand it when I cant read someone like that. Its like a mind game. So anyway that’s the way I felt about the girl upon graduation. To sum - original thoughts: bitch who puts on happy face, modified thoughts: too tough to read what the smile means.
Back to the story. So I see the girl and im planning on just walking by with maybe a nod or passive wave or “hey” but my real goal here is to get out of the conversation with the dude from high school. So I say it was nice seeing you and walk by and as I do so the girl breaks off from her friends and stops me with an enthusiastic “heyyy.” I’m thinking, ok enthusiastic hey im not falling for your deceits and false promises. we have a short conversation and her friends call her back for a shot, which is fine with me because I still couldn’t read her at all and didn’t feel like figuring out what everything meant, I just wanted a few drinks with the fellas. I make my departure back to my cousin and friends. Some time passes and we’re on our last drink at this bar and we head from the top down to the dance floor to check out the scene. My cousin puts his hands in the air and starts that overdancing thing guys do sometimes to walk through crowds and check out for girls….He comes back empty handed. I laugh on the inside. He goes to the bathroom and me and the other 2 guys im with are going to finish our beers quick and meet him outside. this is when I notice the girl in the middle of the dance floor going crazy. Arms flailing in all directions, hips shaking, singing along to the songs, all in rhythm. Too much for any dude to come from behind and try to dance with her, no they wouldn’t keep up. I talk to the fellas a little more and look back towards the dance floor a little later and the girl is now only a few feet from me and not really dancing and I have about 2 solid sips left so I lean over and say hey it was nice seeing you tonight, take care, or something to that effect. She replies youre leaving? And I say yeah and she says I should stay and I say ok and I tell the fellas ill see em later.
The bar was kinda fun. Since im white and cant dance I just do stupid shit out there and make a fool of myself on purpose to try and lighten the mood. Sometimes people think im retarded, sometimes people think its funny. She found it funny. The dude from high school is back and he wants to reminisce some more. He knows her and I know her and he knows some other chick that he aggressively grinds with and we’re all just having a good time. We take some shots and talk awhile. For some reason I seem to hold interest in what I say but the bar is closing soon. I ask to walk her home and she says yeah. Now its me and her and 2 other people she knows that I don’t. we walk to her house but along the way I begin to notice a feeling become stronger and stronger in my groin…yeah…I have to pee really bad. I didn’t notice it at the bar but im noticing it now and bad, but worse, the girl seems to know someone in every group we walk past and we have to stop and talk a few minutes every time. These minutes begin to build and build. Eventually I cant take it anymore. We stop and talk to some guy she knows and while hes walking over to say hi I say hey ill be right back. Im thinking I have to find a freaking tree/bush/grass to piss on but I look around and notice a few things. A. there are people everywhere, this is homecoming weekend. B. there are lights everywhere. Streetlights, houselights, floodlights are allover the place and this is partially due to C. im in frat row. People must get busted for pissing in public all the time here. So…I think im screwed but I run around to find somewhere to piss and end up settling on the corner of a frat house that is partially covered from the lights but not fully. I start peeing and realize im in full view in many directions but maybe if I pull out my cell phone and just look like im making a call that will work. I do, it does…some dude walks right by me as im peeing and doesn’t say a word. Secret is having both hands free, it makes the deception easier. I was mad scared though b/c of the fine incurred a few months back and also for the reason that cops hate me, im pretty convinced.
We eventually get back to her place and there is typical sorority drama going on. Some girls locked themselves in the rooms and some other girls need clothes and things that are in there. That’s the main problem. The second problem is the blacked out drunk girl that was asleep on the bathroom floor that walks downstairs and is for some reason freezing cold. shivering like crazy. She asks me to find her a blanket. I have no idea where extra blankets would be and if there would even be any…I doubted there was. I offer her my sweatshirt and she accepts and passes out on the couch. I doubted I would ever see that thing again. That was the first cool thing I did, other than peeing and not getting caught. Next cool thing, using a credit card and breaking into the locked doors. I felt like such a pimp when that actually worked. I hadn’t done that in years and it worked on like the first try. Sometimes things just go right. So we got the clothes out of the room and the problem was solved although the girl didn’t have a place to stay since the passed out girl took her couch. I offered her a place at my brothers.
We had to drive from the place she was supposed to stay over to my brothers because it was late and cold and her car was in the front anyway. This car, I don’t know what it was but it was enormous. It was like a suburban on steroids. I wish I could remember the name of it so I could google picture it now but I cant. Anyway I drive the thing over to my brothers but I know doing this that finding a spot there will be next to impossible. Its homecoming weekend and there are no spots anywhere. I pull out in front of cj’s and yep…no spots anywhere. I pull down to the end of the block and turn around. There is a couple in the street sort of near a car so I take a shot and we ask, hey are you guys leaving by any chance? The girl is awful charming like I said and I think that’s the reason we got the response we were looking for. The guy grabs onto our car and tells us to reverse to his car. I do. He gets out and moves it then I notice the size of the spot he was in….maybe 6 inches longer than the car im driving. Im thinking theres no way. No way. The guy says to me thought that he’ll guide me in. I say ok and pull the car forward and put it in reverse. The next 5 seconds is the best ever parallel parking job ive ever ever done. Perfectly in on the first try, no adjustments or anything with this behemoth of a car in a tiny tiny spot. We thank the dude and walk to cj’s.
The last and final piece to this night may seem unbelievable but I swear to its truth. We get to my brothers place. I had called him a few times from the car and got no response. We get to the door of his apartment…it’s locked. Greeeeat. I continue to call him, we shout his name, we have the neighbors bang from their side of the wall and not one of the FIVE dude that live there wake up and let us in. in all fairness it is past 3:30 am now and they are all drunk. I call a few other people in state college thinking maybe I could get an answer there and we could find somewhere else to sleep or something but I get no answer from anyone. So I walk back outside cj’s apartment. Here are the details to the apartment. He lives on the second floor. The bottom floor underneath his is maybe 15 feet tall. There is a balcony that just out with a square wooden pole maybe 8” by 8” stat supports it. The balcony has a glass slider to the livingroom of the apartment. So now I have an idea. Climb the pole. …I put my hands wrapped around the back 2 corners of the pole and put my feet on the front and lean back to balance my weight. I begin to physically walk up the pole, placing foot in front of foot and then moving one hand at a time. I look like some sort of ape but its working. I climb all the way to the top, am scared out of my mind but grab the side of the balcony and hurl myself over. I couldn’t believe it. The girl couldn’t believe it. Some dude walking by couldn’t believe it. I feel like I just climbed mt. everest at this point. I was spiderman but with more personality, i was king kong climbing the empire state building but with less hair. I open the door from the inside and let the girl in. it was a night where everything that could have gone right, went right, and through it all I was beginning to like the girl a lot more. We seemed to get along really well throughout the night and conversation was very natural between us. So I open the door and let her in and we start talking on the couch. Then she puts her arms around me. our eyes soon meet. we lean in and the rest of the night began
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2 comments:
Play on, player.
Indeed, fella. Indeed.
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