Hot Cars

Twice a year, D city collects hazardous and electronic waste for proper disposal. This year, I had an old monitor and an old printer to get rid of. And my buddy asked if I could get rid of some tiki torch fuel for him as well, no questions asked. Sure, why not?

So I pile my stuff into the car, pick up his thing of fuel, and head out to the parking lot of CB Amphitheater where collection is to take place.

As I'm sitting in the line of cars waiting for happy volunteers to take my stuff, I see a guy sitting on a grass median next to my car. He's gleefully playing with a laptop computer. Looks up at me. "Hey! I don't s'pose you have a laptop you're getting rid of, do you?"

Sorry.

"That's ok. I just picked this one up. Looks like it works!" A friend had told me about the computer scavengers. I love that. Reuse is even better than recycle.

I also notice two young ladies, volunteers, spraying each other with water from water bottles (it's a hot, sunny day). Attractive young lady volunteers. Wow. I'm hoping I'll be put into their line, but fate puts me into another. As I'm sitting waiting for my turn. Suddenly someone rushes up to my driver-side window, practically sticks her head in the car, and exclaims, "WOW! What year is this car??!!"

It's one of the two young ladies, and I now can see that she's gorgeous. Mediterranean-looking. Yowzah. I'm stunned.

Unhhh, it's an 87. Brain not quite in gear.

"Where did you GET it???!!!"

Wl, unh, I, um, bought it from a buddy of mine a few years back!

"I used to have one of these, and I LOVED it!!! These are AWESOME cars!" And before I can think of anything to say to continue the conversation, to ask her out, to ask her hand in holy, holy matrimony (for she clearly is likeminded and appreciates my exquisite (and exquisitely unique) taste in vehicles), she runs off. Presumably back to her water-squirting friend to tickle the fantasies of others.

The other volunteers take my electronics and fuel, and I drive off, wondering if there was anything I really could have done differently (you know, for the next time a beautiful woman runs up to me and tells me how much she LOVES my 87 Honda Accord). I haven't yet come up with anything. If you have any ideas, lemme know.

Zero For Two

Takeout Lawyer is trying to have a social life.

Scratch that. Takeout Lawyer has a social life. A very full social life, thank you very much, but is trying to get some romance into it.

Yes, Takeout Lawyer is looking for love.

I’ve been on Match. A friend summed up Match women (if I may be so crass as to stereotype): Sassy Single Lady Looking for Mr. Right! I would add that she has a username like 1QTin[cityofD]4U!!! I shouldn’t knock it, though. Met a great woman whom I dated for like eight months on Match. And, I’ll add, I’m sure I’m not quite the catch my mother thinks I am.

Regardless, at some point Match started to depress me, so I tried The Onion. Spring Street Networks, actually. They’re on The Onion, Nerve, and I think Salon.

It was a whole new world.

The pictures were cute – at least, they seemed cute, but it was hard to tell b/c they’re mostly taken from these odd angles, with most of an arm outstretched towards the camera (self-portraits). The profiles were intriguing, with questions like "What are five things you’ll find in my bedroom?" (To which one woman hilariously – and compellingly – answered "more skill than you’ll find in my kitchen." Ooh la la!) There were questions about drug use (heavens!) and [sharp intake of breath that does not seem to have been given a name in English] self-love.

In short, I thought I’d stumbled across the D’s repository of edgy single women. Edgy. Finally!

Long story short, I went out with an Onion woman tonight. Just got back.

I was worried when, even before we met, I was thinking of how I’d tell her, after the date, that I wasn’t really interested in seeing her again. I just get a feeling very early on and, like it or not, that seems to be the make-or-break. Yes, self-defeating. I know. I wish I could get the rational, logical side of my head to convince the emotional side of my head that I should like such-and-such a woman who has all these great attributes. But I can’t. Nor can I get that side of my head to convince the other side that I should NOT like such-and-such a woman who has a bunch of great attributes but who dumped me four years ago and is now (probably blissfully, dammit) married.

Therapy hasn’t really helped.

Sure, there’s the idea out there that even if things don’t work out romantically, you can make good friends on the dating sites. But that idea is just wrong, as far as I’m concerned. Besides, I have lots and lots of great, great friends, and honestly don’t feel the need to expand my social circle to include more. I want one more friend, and that’s all. Basically, a woman who has her shit together and is unwilling to take shit from me. I’d like her to be physically attractive, as well, of course. But I don’t mean magazine attractive. I mean Takeout Lawyer attractive. No tall blondes for me. Give me a short Jewish girl with short dark hair and glasses. And not too skinny, either.

Ok, I’m getting off track.

So I’m walking with my date back homeward. We’re chatting amiably. I’m recalling that, when I insisted that I pay, she said she’d pick up the tab the next time. "Ok; I’ll pick it up next time."

I’ve used that line, too. And I wonder if the women I’ve used it on felt the same way that I did tonight.

Sure, sure! [No eye contact. There won’t be a next time.]

I usually walk a date all the way to her home, but just really didn’t want to tonight. So I bid her farewell at Circle D. Don’t worry – it’s a safe neighborhood. Didn’t know what to say to her, but it was a fairly quick goodbye, so I really didn’t have to say much. I have a guilt problem, and I’m feeling lower than a worm’s belly. I’m thinking she’s going to want to go out again (conceited of me, perhaps, sure), and I’m not, and I’m going to have to tell her that I’m not interested. And that really sucks. But she’s a good woman, smart, educated, attractive. We just don’t click. No chemistry, no repartee. Sorry.

I get to the bus stop, and want to check how long the bus’ll be. There’s a fellow standing there waiting for the bus, and I ask him the time. He doesn’t answer. Deaf, maybe. I get his attention and make the universal sign for "what time is it." He shows me, very, very awkwardly, his watch. 9.30. He’s got these enormous coke-bottle glasses that make his eyes look like those of a praying mantis or something. He’s leaning all angly on a cane, and doesn’t seem to be able to speak. The fellow’s got some serious problems.

9.30! Thanks!

I check the schedule, 9.30 is the next bus, actually.

Should be here soon!

He seems to acknowledge what I say, but I can’t really tell. I smile.

The bus comes, I get on, sit. (Fortunately for me, the driver took my transfer even though it was over an hour expired. Come to think of it, I think I was supposed to pay a quarter anyway, but didn’t. Gotta love government workers. Sometimes.)

A few stops later, there’s a very attractive woman sitting across from me. An older lady embarks with a rolly cart and some groceries. She sits near the both of us, and seems to be fiddling with her cart. I’m not really paying that much attention, but she seems to be trying to get the cart out of the aisle. Takeout Lawyer immediately deems this task to be impossible and assumes that she’ll take the only logical course of action and give it up. I turn to stare out the window.

She keeps struggling. The attractive woman leans over and tries to help. I start to think that I should do something, but I’m not really sure what to do. I get anxious. I reach over and try to steady the cart, which is moving with the bus. Suddenly the guy with the watch, the one at the bus stop, taps me on the shoulder and makes a tremendous effort to say something to me. All that comes out is something like "Bwwwwwoooooaaaaaahhhh eeeeeemmmmmmoooooo" and so on. I translate this as, roughly: why don’t you fucking help the poor woman you bastard instead of sitting on your lazy fat white ass?!

I could have missed some of the subtleties, but I think this was the gist of his statement.

The entire bus is watching now, as the attractive woman and the older lady struggle, and I sit there and pretend like I’m being helpful. I fear that the attractive woman is unimpressed by my lame show of chivalry.

The older lady is trying to collapse the cart to fit into the seat, but there is no way that’s going to happen. I tell her, finally, that it’s ok to leave the cart in the aisle, that people can get by, that she really doesn’t have to worry about it. She calms down, and stops trying to shrink the cart. I calm down, too. Attractive woman stops trying to help (no need anymore).

The older woman talks to the attractive woman, who, it turns out, lives not far from Takeout Lawyer. Of course my interest is peaked even more, as not many attractive women live in my "transitional" neighborhood. So now, she’s got three things going for her like gangbusters. Attractive (Takeout Lawyer attractive, though not with the full complement of listed attributes (it’s ok, I’m flexible)), super, super nice (and, based on several minutes observation, surely very, very cool as well), and lives in the hood. Yowzah! A catch, without a doubt.

However, in view of his complete failure to help the situation (evidenced by the deaf guy yelling unintelligibly at him and his vain flailings), the public nature of the bus, and probably also his current state of mind having just left the disaster date, Takeout Lawyer deems it unacceptable to hit on this woman at this time.

Dammit, she probably even likes the same weird music I like, too.

The older lady is going to near the end of the line, and the attractive woman is not.

So attractive woman will not see me chivalrously take control of the situation at the older lady’s stop by commandeering the cart and getting it off the bus and up the curb so that she’ll be able to wheel it on home.

Nope, she didn’t get to see that.

Oh well. Back to The Onion.