Two Stories About Breaking Stuff
I know we usually keep it pretty lighthearted in here, but today is actually also pretty lighthearted I just wanted to cause concern with that first clause. But anyways, here are two stories that involve me throwing something over my shoulder without looking.
Story One:
I need to tell a story, and I don’t have a good explanation for how things went the way they went but I think about it a lot, so let’s talk. I’m at a bar. Sober. I’m with my friend, Andrew. Sober. We’re with three young women we’d just me. Sober. (It’s not that my default state isn’t one of sobriety but given the bar and also my actions, one might think otherwise). We’d engaged in conversation because I was polling the bar about who was more attractive — my one friend or Andrew. I’m not using the other guy’s name because we’re not actually friends. Not that we’re enemies, we just don’t talk anymore and we were never close enough for me to tell him that I was using his likeness to belittle a friend with whom I was close enough to poll a crowd of strangers regarding his attractiveness. Anyways, Andrew was a little upset because he was losing. Andrew’s a good looking guy — like a 7/10. I told him it wasn’t about him being unattractive, it was about the other guy being more attractive. I just wanted to prove a point because I’m a bad friend and he’s a good sport. I’d gone to this table and asked the girls and he’d lost 2–1 and then I’d brought Andrew over and told him which girl had voted for him and then we’d moved on to more important matters like what they were doing in LA and how they knew each other. A girl who looked like Jessica from New Girl was telling me about how she was a musician and she’d just finished her first album and she was talking about some more serious stuff in there like love lost and whatnot and I asked her if she was relying on life experiences for her inspiration and she said “no, I just imagine what it’s like.” I had mixed feelings (they weren’t really that mixed — I thought she was a fraud) about it but the conversation continued. The girl that wasn’t the musician and wasn’t the one who said Andrew was more attractive than the other guy was focusing on a pasta dish. It felt weird. Now here’s the part where I still don’t understand why I acted the way I acted — not the attractiveness voting; that was standard behavior. I ask her what she’s eating and she tells me and I comment that it’s kind of a unique move to be at a crowded sports bar on a Friday evening to eat Italian and she agrees and says she doesn’t really like it. So I grab it and toss it over my shoulder, not looking, kind of like you would with a Dixie cup headed to a trash can. But there was no trash can behind me. More importantly, this was no Dixie cup. This was a full-on marble-like bowl with a handle and everything. Serious kitchenware. Not serious enough to not shatter on the floor behind me, causing a scene, a mess and everything else. Bits of bowl and pasta abound. I’m not looking, because I’m trying to keep a straight face and act as if it was a normal thing to do, but the three female faces in front of me were perfectly replicating the shocked emoji and Andrew is crying tears of dismay and laughter simultaneously. But somehow the mess was cleaned up, I talked my way out of being kicked out of the bar and also out or leaving the table, and we ended up having an excellent time together. Andrew ended up dating the girl who chose him for three months** before they amicably split and remained friends. That’s the whole story. All’s well that ends well?
* This is a pure, unadulterated lie. They did not date. We never spoke to any of those women again. I think that girl had a boyfriend, to be honest. I wonder if they’re still together. She seemed nice. I hope so.
Story Two:
Picture this — I’m in my high school cafeteria wearing my high school-mandated polo and khakis, neither of which fit well and eating a leftover roast beef sandwich which tasted worse than my clothes fit. I don’t finish it — with a mere two bites left I’m distracted by a table mate’s request for me to sample this “spicier than ever” hot sauce. I lick the sample off my finger and am overwhelmed by the burning sensation. The rest of my roast beef sandwich didn’t need an excuse to be left alone, but the damage to my tongue sealed the deal. Fast eater that I am, half of the lunch break remains and my eyes wander to a table across the room. I lock eyes with Claire –we’ll call her Claire because that’s her name — and start to make intense eye contact. She laughs it off. I don’t. She returns my gaze, my silent invitation to the ultimate duel of wills; a staring contest. A minute passes. She blinks. I don’t. It’s not over though, as she refocuses with a more serious disposition. Time ticks by as we lock eyes, our table mates taking notice of our stillness, my side more stern than hers. According to the standard rules of engagement in staring contests, I had been deemed the champion several times over by her repetitive blinks but I care not. I’m in it for love of the game at this point. As the minutes pass and the lunch period ends, a small crowd has gathered. The teachers, because they are urging us to leave. My table mates, because tears are streaming down my face now. Her table mates, because they think it’s funny. As my chair is pulled out from underneath me as part of the lunch cleanup process, I remain in an airsquat position, target still in focus. I ball up the disappointing roast beef remainder into my plastic water cup and fling it behind my back some twenty feet to where I remember the trash can to be. Miraculously it makes it in. (Maybe it made it in. I wasn’t looking. Everyone reacted as if it did. Everyone said I did. But again; I wasn’t looking. Even if I was looking, I wouldn’t have been able to see. My tears were blinding me). Finally, we stop and I blink, furiously rubbing my eyes for comfort. But alas, no comfort was to be found as the hot sauce residue from earlier had now transitioned from my forefingers to my pupils. The pain intensified. Anyways, I had to go to the nurse’s office and skip Chemistry class which I nearly failed and now Claire is marrying someone else at the table but it’s fine.