Little things

No, I'm not talking about the first Good Charlotte single, although I certainly had that album and have even seen them in concert, I'm talking about those day-to-day occurrences that keep us playing the game. Before I get into that though, I just have to point out that, well, is it really any wonder Nicole Richie is pregnant? I mean, after dating Hilary Duff for such a long ass time, during which she alleged to be totally Jessica Simpson style, frontman Joel Madden must have had a serious backlog of unborn children he was waiting to unleash.

So this morning I found myself walking back from the train station. It's not all that much of a hike, but it happened to be hot as balls and, concurrently, I happen to be the sweatiest human alive, so I did what any self-respecting citizen would do in a situation in which they wished to limit the number of launderings a shirt will undergo: I took my shirt off. As per usual I wasn't wearing my contacts as I am prone to demented eye infections that cause irritation and, in a couple of instances, near blindness. So it was, then, that I couldn't see who was driving the car that pulled up to me as I was removing my shirt. I assumed for whatever reason that it was someone I knew and they were stopping to label me a "fag" or provide sound advice to the effect of "put a shirt on you homo." As it so happened, it was just some strange lady who I am proud to say was totally busted who looked at me and said, "You're gonna 'cause an accident distracting someone with your totally sweet bod." Actually, I have no idea what she actually said, I just remember that she had a big grin on her face. For all I know she asked me for directions and I fled in fear. Either way it totally made my day.

The thing is, I'm sure strangers randomly engage other strangers in conversation all the time and yet, in my estimation, it happens to me way more than other people. Of course, I'm not anyone else so this is an entirely baseless theory but, if anything, that only makes me stand by it all the more. To preface a reference to another recent (in the last week) incident, I find people asking me for directions fairly frequently. I actually don't mind when people to do this; in fact, provided I can actually direct the person where they are headed, I'll tend to feel good about myself for whatever reason. A couple of weeks back I was riding my bike when this car started following strangely behind me. I figured it was the usual motorist, less than eager to go around my retarded self, until there was plenty of room, except that she was tracking me for much longer. Again I wasn't wearing my contacts so I turned around to motion her to go around/flip her off in some manner (but I'm getting ahead of myself, I didn't even know it was a woman yet) when she shocked me by stopping, rolling down her window and asking me directions. Shocked is hardly the word, but I'm trying to beef up a boring tale. Still, I went from being pissed that she was so retarded she wouldn't get around me, to satisfied she would now be able to get where she was headed. But then, a week or so ago, as I was initially referencing, some dude pulled alongside me shortly after I jaywalked in front of his car, to ask me the location of some street with which I am not familiar. Rather than simply driving on, he frowned at me and seemed legitimately pissed at me for not knowing. I hope he had an important date he missed. Fucker.

Still, there is no point in retelling every boring instance in which a stranger has talked to me, so I'll stick to just a few more terrible anecdotes, most of which play nicely into my vanity and ego. Actually, I'm feeling kind of sleepy, so I will just tell of one wonderful evening in a local Pathmark, which doesn't have shit on Price Chopper as far as grocery stores go, though neither can really hold a candle to Wegmans, but let's not even go there right now. So there I was with one of my mates, most likely on our way to pick up a couple of half gallon (technically 1.75 quart) containers of the seemingly now defunct Edy's mint ice cream featuring mini M&M's, when some old fellow who smelled quite bad really, stopped me so that he might ask my advice on a product purchase. Maybe it's pertinent to mention that it is somewhere in the neighborhood of two in the morning at this point, so your local grocer clientele is already, statistically speaking, several standard deviations from the norm. "Excuse me, young man," he said, "you look like you go to college. Do you think you could answer this question for me?" What he inquired of me was, between wide-ruled and college-ruled notebook paper, which had the narrower ruling. "Wide-ruled is wider," I told him. "That's why it's called wide-ruled." I figured between my assumed college knowledge and the fact that if one were to hold a stack of each paper side-by-side the difference is clearly visible, that this had closed the matter. "Really, are you sure? I thought it was college-ruled that was wider." The horrible truth is that the matter was not quite settled at this point but, realizing full well this has translated into a terrible story, I'm cutting myself off. Sure I could go back and just delete the damn thing, but frankly I'm too lazy even to do that. Maybe tomorrow.