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Friday, September 29, 2006

Scrap: Unrelated

This is an odd sort of a scrap insofar as it's not actually the character this blog deals with, primarily, but I needed a place to stick it :)

Everything you had ever seen on TV or in movies indicated you should have felt a distinct high. Instead, you simply felt certain there was a Papermate Fine Point stabbing you between your sixth and seventh vertebrae. Sitting up on your elbows, you surveyed the room and were privately grateful for your disdain for office kitsch. Less clean-up.

"That was..." you started to say, kicking aside a stack of neon post it's and reaching for your discarded sandal, but you couldn't think of a way to end the sentence. Awkward might be a term you would use, but "good" would be making no cameos in the tale when you rewove it for Lauren over drinks later. Disappointing, on the other hand...

"Yeah, I felt it too."

If every girl has a few great stories about bad sex, you would never know how to define Nora. You met her on the stairwell of your dorm building in your sophomore year and, while you had never been fast friends, when you were feeling down, Nora was always good for a pick me up. Walking into the bar, you shook the rain from your umbrella and scanned the room for her. She was sitting not entirely alone at her favorite table in the corner. After introducing her to your own special Long Island Iced Tea recipe one particularly tragic evening, she drunkenly confessed that her predilection toward this particular table was based entirely on superstitious belief that remaining at the site of the worst date of her life would bring her to the man of her dreams. You refrained from mentioning that the table by the men's room at a sports bar was likely to bring her many men, none of whom would be Mr. Right.

"Gin martini, please," you asked, smiling at the bartender. You never quite understood why a sports bar would miss the opportunity to employ perky 22-year old college drop out, but had yet to find a real reason to complain. Normally, you'd be thankful just to find someone who knew the proper method of applying Vermouth to a glass but your relationship with Simon had crossed beyond that of patron and proprietors nephew on several occasions.

"Extra olives?"

Simon would never have forced you to endure this morning's misguided attempt at spontaneity.

"How long has it been raining?" Nora asked by way of a greeting as you pulled out your chair.

"How long have you been here?" you inquired in return, raising an eyebrow. She lifted her glass in congratulations to your remark and grinned. "Ah, well. At least tell me how far behind I am?"

Within 15 minutes, she was up to speed on your life and you could already feel the comforting effects of honesty and alcohol creeping into your fingertips. "Maybe the people at All My Children know something I don't, but having sex on a solid oak, executive desk is seems like a let down to me."

"Don't blame the desk!" she exclaimed, reaching for a bowl of pretzels on a neighboring table. "The desk can't help the fact that you're a prude and that beau of yours lacks stamina. The desk did the best that it could. It's the two of you that couldn't make anything of it." For a few seconds, silence fell - at your table at least. Across the bar, fifteen muscle bound, testosterone junkie, he-men grunted their approval - or was it disapproval? - at someone named Hernandez. You stabbed an olive irritably and slid it in your mouth to avoid responding. "All I'm saying is, if you're not into this guy, he's probably not worth training. True, it would be a service to the next woman who has to date him but that's her problem."

The truth of the matter was that you knew she was right and, as always when someone else was right, you were determined to ignore it as long as possible. When your Human Resources director offered to set you up with her friend Christian, you smiled and proceeded to make every effort to squirm out. When she insisted, you agreed to see him once, assuming you could be so dull that, at the end of the evening, he wouldn't be able to call you a cab fast enough. Little did you know that this man would have remarkable patience for the inner workings of the latest UNIX server structure. At the end of the night, he gave you his raincoat, walked you to the door and kissed you on the hand. For as disinterested as you were, you couldn't bring yourself to tell him no when, with pleading, pathetic eyes, he asked if you wanted to get some coffee that Wednesday.

Nearly ten dates later, here you were - wondering how you'd ever gotten into this mess. The realization made you reach for your glass.