it’s been a crazy week, let me tell you. work has been a whirlwind, and there’s been an oddly high level of female activity in my life this week. in fact, i have a few excellent stories to share, and will, starting below. but first, a new pay day song to mark the series from neutral milk hotel — perhaps appropriately, song against sex. an excellent track, and one that happens to kick off the merge collection i’ve been listening to almost exclusively all week. so here we go…

Girls: Source of Endless Pain and Amusement

Part One — The Napkin

after an interesting afternoon that will comprise a later part of the series, i had gone out to a local pub with some friends (st. nick’s for the locals). cool place. i was at the bar taking a shot with some friends, and returning to our booth, a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said his friend — a pretty girl a few booths away — was trying to get my attention and wanted to talk to me. so i went and sat down with them instead and had a good time talking to them for over an hour. she was really cute, too.

so at the end of the night when my friends were leaving, i got her to write her number on a napkin for me, which i pocketed quickly, feeling very satisfied with myself, and hopped in the back of my friend’s car shortly after to head home. on the short drive, my roommate asked to see it, which i should have been suspect of, because as soon as he grabbed it he stuck his hand out the window and let it flutter in the breeze between two fingers as everyone in the car laughed. i laughed less, but remained unphased — i knew he wasn’t a jerk. he handed it to the driver, josh, who did the same thing, getting his bit of fun in as well. then spencer, who was with me in the back seat, reached across me out to my roommate’s hand, who again had it out the window on my side, and said, ‘hey let me see that.’ he stuck out his hand, snagged the napkin, held it for a second, then let it go at 40 miles an hour. i watched a white flash zip past my window, then turned in a state of shock to look at spencer, who sat back in his seat looking entirely indifferent to what he had just done. he shrugged at me and looked out his window.

baffled, i didn’t even realize how hard gino and josh were laughing, or that josh had pulled the car into the center lane and stopped, wondering if i wanted to get out and look for it. they just kept saying, ‘holy shit. holy shit, dude!’ and so on, while i thought confused, ‘well, i guess i won’t be calling that girl…’

after a few more moments of laughter, and just as i was about to get out of the car, gino turned back and looked me in the face — and produced the napkin he’d had in his fist all along, as spencer threw his head back laughing at me. my jaw dropped. he had palmed a tissue from his pocket and fooled me completely, letting a decoy go and causing my drunken heart to miss a few beats in the process. everyone laughed at me some more, and i exhaled finally, totally relieved. it was a good joke, but made me even more excited to have the number safely back in my pocket, thinking about getting to call the pretty girl in a few days.

so after the trauma i gratefully eyed the wrinkled napkin on my desk for a few days and finally decided to give her a ring. taking at least 20 minutes with the phone in my hand, i tried to figure out what to say to this person i hardly knew. ‘hello, it’s that guy you met… umm, what’s happening?’ didn’t seem to be the surest way to charm someone. i always find myself frozen in these situations, watching the clock tick by, so at last i mustered up the will to just dial and hold the phone to my ear and see what happened.

luckily for me then that after all this drama and tension, the number was no longer in service. i didn’t have to think of what to say to the polite verizon recording; just follow his instructions to check the number, and try again.