damsel in distress

i cut my finger playing skee ball yesterday.
it was the first game that we were playing for the night, and here i was: bleeding. profusely.
[okay. maybe profusely is an overstatement. but this was no paper cut, ladies and gentlemen.]
it wasn't one of those things i could wipe on the old pair of jeans that i can't seem to get rid of.

as tactfully as i could, i asked where the bathroom was.
[did i mention that i'd met the guy only thirty-four minutes beforehand?]
i tried to stop the bleeding, and
(figuring that fashioning a makeshift paper towel tourniquet would be gross)
decided that asking for a band-aid was my last option.

we waited while there was some drama about a girl wanting a lava lamp at the prize counter.
and we waited.
still waiting.
still bleeding.

once he saw how much blood there was, something magical happened.
he was assertive, interrupting the lava lamp business and making sure i got my band-aid.





[the bleeding stopped.]

on shopping for ice cream

I once had a conversation with one of the best people I know. Becs. Who then told me of a theory about dating invented by one of the other best people I know. My call girl Whit.

The theory goes like this:

Dating is like going to the ice cream shoppe [insert your favorite ice cream place here] (and yes...it is a shoppe...when has an ice cream place ever not had an extra "p" and "e"). You walk in. You see the myriad of flavors and you can't decide which one to choose. Will you go for the fantastical flavor with marshmallow cream and chocolate chips and caramel? Or will you opt to go for vanilla or chocolate?

I mean, the flavor with the marshmallow cream and caramel....man, that looks good. You love all of those things, and you never thought that putting them into an ice cream was a possibility! But, instead of wasting your money and maybe not liking it, you don't. You decide to go for the safe choice. The vanilla.

I mean, there is no doubt you will like the vanilla. [insert chocolate if you are a chocolate person] You've had something like it before. It's safe. It's never failed you. But once you taste that other kind....you know, the kind with all of that great stuff, you'll never go back. You'll love it. It's just a matter of taking that leap, risking that small amount of money, and finally tasting it.

There are some girls (or guys, for that matter) who are vanilla. They are the girls who get the dates all the time. Every weekend. Without fail. There's always a line miles long outside the door for them. They're great people (I mean, vanilla is a rad flavor), but they are vanilla [Interjection: Please don't think I don't like vanilla....or those vanilla people...I do. It's just a fact. Vanilla gets more dates.] . Not quite that acquired taste. Not quite that risk. Whereas there are other girls who are the marshmallow-caramel swirl ice cream. The girls it's kind of scary to take a risk on. Maybe because you don't know what's going to happen. Because you don't know if you'll like it or not. But once you do take that risk for them...

...man alive, you will never regret it.

[Again. I take no credit for this theory. And Whit, if I have ruined it, I'm sorry. It's been on my mind a bit recently.]