Homeless Deer of Long Island

You know that you have a knack for making people feel uncomfortable when you prove to have the ability to get a straggly homeless man to walk away from you.

A few nights ago, my roommate and I were sitting at the bar of our favorive pizza joint, conveniently located a block from our home. It only took about 4 minutes for the the creepy older man to my left to take an interest in me.

It would be a lie if I said that this has never happened before. By nature, I am polite and nice to people and sometimes this attracts creepers. I would rather be a creeper magnet than a bitch, I think.

Anyways, the gentleman looks at me and smiles.

" I had paid my tab but when you sat next to me, I decided that I would stay for one more beer. I'm not a forward guy, but I'm not dumb enough to leave either." He giggled at his own sort of funny joke.

It was strange. He was older, had beer belly that could compete with any globe of the world found in 4th grade classrooms nation wide, and he was clearly more socially awkward than I am, but I was oddly flattered.

Flattery lasted about as long as a heard of snowmen in a hot tub. After twenty minutes of listening to this man recite his weight fluctuation history and high school track/field records from the 1800s, I was ready to move on.

I slowly turned my body back to my roommate, but she was in deep flirtations with a nice looking, age appropriate man. I was out of luck and I knew I would be forced to make up ridiculous stories to make the night bearable.

As I turned around, the man was still talking and he mentioned that he had spent the afternoon golfing with his brother.

" I love golf. In fact I started the very first female golf team when I was in college. My uncle taught me to play when I was little and I have just always enjoyed it. You may have heard of him, he is on TV every once in a while, his name is Tiger Woods."

Awkward Silence.

Just then, my favorite homeless man, Mark approached us and gave me a huge hug and kiss on the cheek.

People judge Mark because he lives in an abandoned car warehouse or maybe because he looks like he is being electrocuted every time he hits the dance floor. He is nice though and he drinks quality beer and those are two things that I look for in a friend. He passes with flying colors.

Mark is also very deep, or at least he tries to be. He is always telling me things like

" Your soul is a garden on radishes. It needs sunshine and happiness as much as hard times and rain to let it form into a pumpkin pie."

Like I said, deep.

I introduced Mark to my new golfing weight fluctuating friend and they quickly hit it off. Mark told him that his heart felt like a a starving squid, or something equally as weird and I tapped myself on the back for matchmaking skills. I had single handedly blossomed this friendship and I had ever right to be damn proud.

I ordered another drink, and when I turned back to the happy couple, they were discussing how a raccoon had gotten into a hospital somewhere in the midwest.

At this point in the evening it is important to note that I had gulped 2+ Long Island Iced teas. Sometimes when I drink, I think that the more LIs I drink, the soberer I get but this is simply just not the case. I was just at the right level of drunkenness where my bar lies were becoming quite extravagant and I was feeling pretty competitive. Bad combination.

I couldn't just sit there and let them tell this story about raccoons in hospitals. I had to one- up them and tell a better story. there is no explanation for what popped out of my mouth next.

" Oh thats nothing." I said casually. " Last week I came home from work and there was a deer in my living room. No idea how it got there. It took me 20 minutes to shew it out with a broomstick"

Silence. again.

Homeless Mark and the creepy old man glanced at eachother, speechless. When I turned my head to slip my drink, they both walked away without a goodbye. I hope at the very least they left together to develop the beautiful friendship that I started. At least that way I can note the evening as a success.

If only room clearing was an olypmic sport.

Single Sweaty Sock

"I'm not drunk. This is just the way I am" is a phrase I have been hearing myself say a lot lately.

It is no secret that I enjoy being awkward and that I take great pride in my ability to entertain my friends with my interactions with strangers. Although I always enjoy my ridiculous episodes, I often forget that I live in a small city and the chances of me running into the same person more than once is quite high. This is beginning to get me into trouble.

Last July, my friends and I hosted a bachelorette party for my roommate. The night started out mellow and low key but I never doubted that by the end party our innocent intensions would be misplaced with my left shoe, poise and "inside voice". Although I knew that things were bound to get rowdy, I never expected to end the night with seven single dirty socks and a priceless story to share with my future grandchildren.

After dinner and a few themed martini's at a local American Bistro, we decided that it was in everyone's best interest to go dancing at the club with the frog porn display. Please note: it is never in ANYONE's best interest to watch me dance for I am about as graceful as a blind giraffe on roller skates. But like I said, I had sampled a few martinis and had conveniently forgotten that my moves on the dance floor could be considered cruel and unusual punishment for my victimed viewers.

At Club Frog Porn things began to get interesting. We had a stack of Bachelorette Party dare cards that we designed solely to embarrass drunk girls at parties. Lucky for me, I rarely get embarrassed and therefore always dominate these games.

As we were taking turns pulling cards from the deck, I was beginning to grow bored. My friends were picking cards telling them to " dance with someone more than 20 years older than you" or " Ask the DJ to play Celine Deon and sing along". Yawn. I wasn't sure how this game was going to make the bachelorette party any different from any other Friday night of my freakshow life.

When it was my turn to pull a card, I wasn't even excited. I was strongly considering hiding the card from my friends and making up my own prank. I would make an imaginary " write your own dare" card. I was confident that I could think of a dare more entertaining than anything on these cards and considering my impressive experience in the fields of lying and bullshit- I knew that I could make it sound believable. . It would probably include a bald man, an elaborate fabricated story, and/or a fart. I am 24 years old and still firmly believe that farts make everything a little funnier. I pulled the card I was pleasantly surprised to see that I needed to " Ask a man for one of his socks…and keep it!". I knew I had hit the bachelorette dare jackpot.

I immediately turned to the first man with in grabbing distance. Without wasting any time with an introduction- asked for his left sock. He said no. I rolled my eyes and sighed as if he was refusing to tell me the time. This was going to be more challenging than I thought. Not wanting to give up hope on my socked prey, I politely asked again. I can be very persuading when put my mind to it and eventually I had his sweating sock in my hand.

Above all things, I am a competitor. Since the rest of the bachelorettes had grown bored with the game, the only competition was with myself. The card technically said that I only needed to collect one man's sock, but my strong work ethic would not be satisfied with a solo lonely tube of sweat and feet juice ( gross sorry). I decided that it was only logical to push myself to collect as many socks as possible before the night was through.

At first, I thought that I was a sock collecting failure. I asked at least a dozen men to donate 1 sock to the cause of Katie's blissful marriage and no one was willing. Although I was impressed that in my efforts, though I had not collected any socks, 2 men had asked for my number and 1 man had compared me to Chelsea Clinton. I ordinarily would not take this as a compliment of any kind, but if I had to look like any of the Clintons- I would pick Chels.

As the bar was closing, my luck turned. As I was on the dance floor, performing my drunk giraffe dance, almost all of the men who had refused their footwear to me earlier in the night were approaching me with socks in their hands! It was amazing. Within 6 minutes I was holding 7 single sweaty socks!

I left for the night with my head held high-proud to be labeled the sock collecting champion from game of which I was the only competitor. However, in all of my glory, I had forgotten that there were now 8 men in the city who think that I have some sort of foot fetish.

Cheers.

Tequila Fueled Fiction

This weekend I have learned two things about myself:
1. I am a ridiculous human being
2. There is a large possibility that I am a pathological liar

Before you judge and question why I would publicly admit such an unflattering flaw, please take note that I don’t lie about the things that “matter” and I that would never cheat on anything more important than monopoly. I generally consider myself to be a trustworthy person.

The trouble all began on Friday as I was waiting for my friend Molly to pick me up from the airport in NYC. It wasn’t terribly cold out, but there was a hasty wind. Although I have to admit that I mildly regretted not wearing a jacket that morning, I was at least wearing pants. Pants are always a good start in my book.

I was sitting on a bench, reading, and minding my own business when and older gentleman sat beside me.

“ Where is your jacket? You must be chilly, young lady.” The man judged.

Without even thinking about it, I instinctively answered

“ Oh I’m okay. I just flew in from Alaska”

If you held me at gunpoint, I couldn’t tell you why I said that. I have never even been to Alaska I wasn’t even trying to lie. I had no reason to. I could have just as easily replied with a polite “ yes, I am feeling quite chilled this afternoon” or I could have even explained that I grew up in northern Vermont . Instead though, this nonsense about Alaska just popped out of my mouth, like the gum that flew into my hair earlier this year. By the time I realized what I had said, I couldn’t come clean without making myself seem insane ( Which actually may be close to the truth). I just put my head back into my book and prayed to the Eskimo Gods that he would not ask any follow up questions.

Molly picked me up a few minutes later and I vowed to myself that I would save my fibs for times of crisis and emergency.

And then I had two margaritas.

As the tequila ran through my bloodstream, the lies ran out of my mouth. Except now they were significantly more extravagant and no longer shielded by a sober social sensor. Tequila always makes me more clever and awkward and it often inspires me to make up fun occupations and life experiences. My personal favorite was convincing a man in Vermont that I was a professional Polka instructor and offering him a free lesson in the middle of the bar. By the end of the night he had learned this fake polka dance so well that he was dancing solo and I was playing the air accordion next to him. Still makes me laugh.

I was in rare form in New York City. There are now people in Queens who were entertained by:

1. A recent graduate from the art program of University of Oklahoma- Now working as a tattoo artist in Manhattan.
2. A teacher for the blind in Wisconsin
3. A sales rep from Jersey. ( when asked what I sold, I froze and just said… “ um. Snakes.” And walked away)

This game kept me entertained all evening.

I could lie and tell you that my addiction to fibs is a recent development, but it would be exactly that. A lie. Although I cannot recall the first time I decided to dodge the truth, I do remember several fabrications I made up before the age of 10. Most of these lies were created solely for the purpose to get my little sister into trouble and to solidify my spot as the good daughter. I hardly think that those count as a lies, just good strong self-marketing.

As I grew older and Alicia grew smarter, I stopped trying to convince her that it was okay to stick her middle finger up at people of authority as long as she didn’t personally believe it was wrong. I stopped telling her that as a mature 4th grader, I was more than qualified to give her a haircut, and I moved on from conning her into writing the word “sex” in her diary and insisting that if she showed dad, he would be really proud of her 1st grade handwriting.

As I grew and matured, my lies and stories grew more extreme and elaborate. My senior year of college I started a rumor that our campus mascot statue of a fighting hornet was going to be removed because of some foreign exchange students from Lebanon were offended. I claimed that the hornet was sort of hate symbol in their country and that since LC is so great about respecting diversity and different cultures, they agreed to remove the statue until these make believe students graduated. Ultimately, the rumor got so big that our Dean of Students had to send out a campus wide email saying that it was false. I later admitted to making up the entire story at a talent competition later in the year and thanked the DOS for being such a good sport.

After reflecting on this topic, I think that the word “liar” may be a little harsh. I think that I am more of a storyteller. Libraries don’t have sections labeled “ Lies” and “ non-lies”. If I were to write these ridiculous stories, instead of speaking them to strangers; it would be labeled as fiction. Call me a drunken fiction teller.