line expansion

So Monique and I have plans to go to O’Leary’s for open mic night. We’re trying to get out more. She asks her friends Nicole to come (who can’t), and a man she just recently met, Mike. I kind of object to Mike coming, given that he’s my 2nd-last ex’s best friend (we never met; Nick and I didn’t date for that long). “Why Mike?” I ask.

“I thought we should expand our circle of friends,” she replies.

“You mean our circle of two?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s kind of more like a line then, eh? You’re expanding the line?”

Anyway, we have some Cabernet Sauvignon during Lost pre-O’Leary’s [CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT JOHN LOCKE’S DAD IS THE ORIGINAL SAWYER OMG OMG!] then head out. The cab driver recognises me from a previous trip, which surprises me. I ask him why he remembers me—is it because I was so beautiful, or because I was so charming? “It’s because your name is ‘Mercedes’” he replies. Mercedes Black is the name I give strangers when I don’t want them to know my real name. Anyway, Monique and I are a little drunk, so apparently this gives the cabbie license to try to joke around with us. This ends in disaster when, upon passing two pedestrians who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent, he says “Hey, look—it’s the Taliban!” This is where the fun ends. My sense of social outrage becomes exponentially defined when I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, and I tell him in no uncertain terms how ignorant his comment is, and point out that I’m 1/4 Arab (total BS, of course) and therefore take special offense.

Monique tips the bastard.

The rest of the evening goes pretty well. I run into a few old friends at the bar. One of them, Ben, was on the street up until very recently; he was on crack, or heroine, or both. Having cleaned up his act, Ben’s looking pretty hot, which Monique quickly picks up on, trying to get me to work some magic between the two of them. I try to dissuade her as, you know, this guy was a crack-head the last time I saw him. “But I’m desperate,” Monique shamelessly admits.

I know, Monique. I know.

Mike and his 19-year old room-mate arrive. Mike’s pretty cool, especially for a banker.
Turns out he’s not so close with Nick after all; Nick was a slob, and got on Mike’s nerves in other ways he doesn’t specify outright. He is subtly trying to find out why I broke up with him. The real answer is, of course, that Nick simply wasn’t the one. This was obvious in the most important way (intuition), and smaller ways: he wasn’t overly intelligent, I wasn’t really attracted to him, he had this habit of thinking he understood what I was saying when he never really did—you know how it goes. Plus, he “chair’d”—Nair’d his chest, that is. There’s nothing less sexy than chest stubble.

Then Evan, my most recent ex, shows up. This encounter would have been exceedingly awkward had I not been pretty much toasted. Our conversation, regrettably, is quite long. There’s only so much catching-up you can comfortably do with someone you really have no desire to ever see again. When I escape to go talk to this guy in a super-hot Astroboy t-shirt, Evan tries to start a conversation with Monique (who’s a geologist, by the way). His opener is... are you ready for it?... “So...what’s your favourite element?”

Yeah. And I had a pregnancy scare with this guy.

While Evan’s being his smooth self with Mo, I’m harrassing a complete stranger. This is the (anti-)climax of the evening. Nights on the town that involve six or more drinks always end the same way: me completely mortifying myself in front of a male stranger. The last time, it was a very attractive German man named ‘Jonas.’ I asked him, pretty much flat-out, to make out with me. It was awful. I vowed never to pose that question to a man I’d just met again. No exceptions.

Anyway, I’m complimenting Astroboy on his super-fine t-shirt, elaborating on how Astroboy was my first love (my second love, Pee-wee Herman, ended up being far more romantically significant, but I find that people get very squeamish when I bring up my age six attraction to Pee-wee, so I’ve stopped talking about that). I want his t-shirt, and ask him to sell it to me. His price is $100, which is out of the question. After a few more charming moments, I start begging him to let me just try on the shirt. For some reason, he’s not budging. I then resort to the always-a-winner “I deserve that shirt more than you and therefore you should give it to me” tactic. I start quizzing him on his Astroboy knowledge, and then suggest a “Knowledge-Off,” in which he, surprisingly, refuses to participate.

“Okay, just tell me one thing about Astroboy, then. Just one thing!” I challenge him.

“He has fire that comes out of his feet,” he offers.

This is more infuriating than even that dumb-ass Taliban comment. “The fire doesn’t comes out of his feet! It comes out of his rocket-boots, you asshole!” I yell at him.

AND SCENE!