The Legend of the Crazy Animal Print Chick

Prologue

Stories become tales, tales become legends and legends... well they are the stuff of dreams, legends inspire the imagination. This is not a legend, it is merely a story. I, never the less, will continue to refer to it as “legend” because I like the sound of that better, and it bespeaks a cautionary tale, like a fable. This story may or may not be true. The names may or may not have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent. It is not really even an original story, you've probably heard it before in some form or fashion, but here, in its entirety (or as close to that as I could get from memory) is the story. Sure, it's embarrassing, a little shallow, and after reading it you probably won’t sleep soundly for a few days. But for my own sake, and the sake of posterity, I had to commit this story to the most permanent and lasting medium I could think of... the internet. Once it is here, it will never go away. So here it is:

The Legend of the Animal Print Chick.

Part 1:
The Ominous Origin

I have learned a lot of things in college, like... buffalo wings cost 50 cents on Tuesdays, and no matter how big the discount, waffle house will always be cheaper than IHOP, and never, ever, eat the beef at the dining hall, you will be picking it out of your teeth for the rest of the week... flossing won’t help. Most of the lessons I've learned are about food. I think, though, the most important thing that I have learned in my 6 years in college (calm down, I am getting a masters degree) is that boredom is the worst reason to do anything.

My IPod had stopped working about 2 weeks ago. It gave me the frowny face symbol that usually means “You’re Screwed”. If you insulted your IPod’s mother, this is the face it would give you, then it would never talk (or play music) to you again. So, I stepped on to an almost full bus after my Physics lab on the way to truck after a long day of classes without the respite of my own personal sound track as a barrier to the rest of the world. Like I sometimes did when my IPod was mad at me, I struck up a conversation with the person next to me, you know, just being friendly. Today, that person was a girl with longish dark curly/scrunchy hair, she was wearing glasses, jeans and an ECU hoodie. She was extraordinarily average looking. It was almost refreshing. At the time I would have given her a solid 6 (I warned you of the shallowness) which is on the mid to low end of the "dating potential" range.

"How's it goin?" My usual, and completely original opening line. Though perhaps not clever or creative, it is remarkably succinct and depending on the response, you can tell instantly whether the person has any interest in a conversation with you.

"Alright, classes are sucking though!"A complaint, right off the bat, a bad sign. However, the fact that she responded with more than a one word... "good" or "alright" means that she is probably interested in a conversation.

"That sucks, what sort of classes are you taking?" A chance for her to redeem herself. See, she started off with a complaint, generally a bad sign. I mean, who starts complaining to complete strangers. But, my second question gave her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she just has tough classes. If she is a Chem major or an Econ major, commenting on the difficulty of her classes is a totally justifiable general statement and not really a complaint at all.

"Blah, Blah, English, Blah Blah Blah, Psychology... what about you?" My interest began to wane. Here is a piece of insight ladies; in general, your attractiveness is directly correlated to the how much I pay attention to you when you complain/talk about stuff that doesn't interest me. This girl was a 6, not a bad score, not a great score. I paid her just enough attention to catch the important details, English and Psychology. She was a psych major. I got it. Here is a helpful chart:

Notice that even if you are a 10 (meaning you are Natalie Portman or equally attractive) I will still only listen to you talk about things I do not care about for about 20 minutes. 20 minutes is actually quite a lot. I have trouble paying attention to things I really enjoy for much longer than that. But, it is for this reason that I started playing hard core Angry Birds shortly into Black Swan. Even a lesbian scene between Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman was not enough to hold my attention. This is also why I change the channel immediately when I see any current or former female Secretary of State or AttorneyGeneral, or Rosie O’Donnell…

you get the idea.

A Digression:

No offense to you psychology majors out there, but let’s be honest, you have limited yourselves by choosing that as your field of expertise. In the field of psychology, there are very few actual jobs that you can really do. How many more self help books do we really need? Although, I suppose it may be fun to build a psychological profile of the morbidly obese diabetic in a wheel chair to whom you are serving Big Macs while you work on that pop-psych article

you're hoping will set the blogosphere abuzz. Stop lying to yourself, a job at McDonalds is not field research and no one reads your blog. A psych degree is like a degree in being annoying. We all like to use the stuff we learn in class, I get it. I talk about markets and business models and fun stuff like that when it is appropriate. But psych majors, stop psychoanalyzing your friends, after a while you won’t have them. This is really all I am trying to say. As a student you know just enough to be annoying. Not all guys who have a healthy respect for their mothers have an Oedipus complex and not all girls who dress like sluts have daddy issues. Sometimes, most times, a cigar is just a cigar.
…But I digress

"Management Classes, they aren't too bad...lots of group projects." An honest answer.

“I'm Sierra by the way… like the mountains.” At this she fell into a manic fit of giggles.

"blah blah... more small talk ...blah blah" I'd almost completely stopped paying any attention at this point, just the token head nods, and "oh, really" where appropriate.

"Well, this is my stop, I'll see you lat..."

"This is my stop too... I am parked all the way in the back ...and it's raining, just my luck."

"Man, sucks for you!" is what I should have said.

What I actually said: "I'm parked right in the front, I could give you a ride to your car if you want, it is raining pretty hard."

And that was mistake number two... mistake number one, I would learn later from my friend, Smallgood, was talking to strangers on the bus in the first place.

...So, I drive her to her car and once there I say, "well... it was nice meeting you, maybe I'll see you around." and here is where the story takes an intriguing turn. Before she gets out of the car she says, "Aren't you going to ask me for my number?" I know you all saw that coming, but at the time, I did not... what can I say, I am a bit slow on the uptake. Well, needless to say, I am shocked. I stutter. I am lost for words. I say, "That’d be great". Here is what was going through my head. ::She's a 6, that is pretty good, and I am not really busy right now, I have no other prospects. What harm is there in taking her number. She seems nice enough. Who knows, she could be really cool. Why not?:: It was the "why not" that finally clenched it for me. There is really no argument you can make for that kind of logic. Also, I think I had recently seen the movie Yes Man with Jim Carey, so, ya know, I said yes.

So over the next couple of days I couldn't stop thinking about how I really wanted to see the Toy Story 1 and 2 double feature in 3D. More importantly I thought about how I did not want to be that guy sitting by himself in a theater full of kids and their parents. Timing is everything. I found out about the movies months before, but none of my friends wanted to go with me. "I already own those movies", they would invariably say "why would I pay $12 to see them?" apparently, they did not think 3D movies were as cool as I did. Then out of nowhere, there was this girl who serendipitously gives me her number a week or two before the movie goes out of theaters.

...Timing

I didn't immediately friend Sierra on Facebook. I had had a relatively recent bad experience with a girl on Facebook. I friended her after meeting her for the first time. We went on one date. She had crazy eyes, and was a hippy. It didn't work out. Had I not friended her, I would have never had to talk to her ever again, and that would have been that. Unfortunately, I did friend her and after that date, she was constantly trying to talk to me on the (new at the time) Facebook Chat. It got to the point where I stopped signing on. I eventually had to block her. I did not want a repeat. So I put off friending her as long as possible. Unfortunately that severely hampered my ability to do research on (read: Face-Stalk) this girl, which could have helped meto avoid a few surprises, but I'll get to those later. After the requisite 3 days, I called her. We set up a nice little date for that Saturday, dinner at McAlister's and the movies, pretty standard.

I was amped about having a real date. It is a rare occurrence. It is not that I can't get dates, I just don't. So Saturday rolls around. For brevity's sake I will skip the saga of me getting ready for the date. suffice it to say, it takes an embarrassingly long time to achieve that I'm dressed up but trying to look like I'm not dressed up look. I go to pick her up. I walk up to the apartment. I knock on the door. The door opens and I learn several things in very quick succession. First I learn that she lives with her mother... in an apartment... in Greenville. Second, I learn that there is a very small child that lives with them. Third I learned that she really liked animal print. I have never had an issue with girls wearing animal print before. But this was not animal print like I'd ever seen before. She was wearing 3 separate, non matching pieces of animal print clothing, shoes, a shirt and a purse.

I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but that should have been a major red flag. At the time, I just thought she was trying a little too hard to impress on the "first date" and went a bit overboard. In any case, it was visually painful... and being me, I did comment on it, almost instantly. She was thoroughly convinced that she looked awesome in animal print. And she may have... at one time. Unfortunately, the most disquieting thing about the whole situation was that not only did she wear non matching animal print clothing, but the non matching clothing did not fit. It was just a scoach too small for her. However, this was a first date and I had other things to worry about like being immediately introduced to her mother and "nephew". And just in case I wasn'tsquirming enough already, Grandma, who lives next door is invited to this little family reunion. Perfect, just what I wanted, to be judged like a show dog by the mother and grandmother of the girl I was taking to see two Disney movies. Even if they did not have me under the microscope, that is a lot to throw at a guy within the first 5 minutes of the first date.

As we drove to McAlisters, we chatted. Conversation with her was surprisingly easy. However, that was probably due to the fact that she shared way more info than is necessary or appropriate for a first date. At least she was honest and forthcoming. Before we even left the parking lot, Sierra told me about how her estranged father who lives in another state owned the apartment complex where she and her mother and grandma lived. This situation was odd and begs many questions... none of which were asked, I did not want to go down that particular rabbit hole. The amount of weird that I had thus far encountered had very nearly reached my personal limit.

I next learned that she and her mother were taking care of her nephew. Her older but less mature sister got "knocked up" (her words). This sister was apparently very irresponsible so the kid stayed with “Grammy and Auntie Sierra”. She really loved the kid. He was her little man, and I was told that if he did not like me then she would not date me... the end. There is nothing really wrong with this on the face of it. She loves her nephew, and was flirting at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, it was weird, but I was reserving judgment at this point. Later events however would cause me to question whether this child was her nephew or, in fact, her own offspring... But I am getting ahead of the story.

Once at McAllisters we discuss movies and music and other typical first date fare. She really liked horror movies and loved the Saw series (Right then buzzers and red lights and alarms should have been going off). My experience with horror as a genre was limited, but I had at least seen the first 3 saw movies. I like them for what they are... gory slasher flicks, but they don't even crack my top 50 That reminds me, I should redo my top 50 list, Star Trek 4 and Rocky are definitely in the top 5 this time. In any case, we started talking about Cary Elwes's character in the movie. You know the guy who was the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride… This Guy:

Anyway, *Spoiler Alert* She noted that after he cut off his foot in the first movie and crawled away, you never see what happens to him. "I mean all he has is a stump of a leg left. Where'd he go, where is nubby at?!" She said. I have no idea how it happened or why, but somehow the grammatically appalling "Where'd he go, Where's Nubby at?" phrase became a thing, a sort of inside joke between us and she would repeat it continually. I did attempt to correct the grammar once (yes ladies, I'm that guy) but for that story you'll have to wait for Part 5. Anyway, we stayed on Nubby for a while until I made the call and pronounced that particular conversation dead. Before it was all over, I wanted to do this:

We moved on to other movies and I discovered that she had never seen Star Wars... none of them. I always told myself that that would be a deal breaker... any girl I date must be a Star Wars fan, or at the very least have a healthy respect for the movies. She did say she was willing to watch them, and we pretty much planned the second date right then and there, though I didn't realize it then. Again, I was reserving judgment and relaxing my standards. Star Wars is not, in itself, the end all, be all of films. However, whether a person has or has not seen these films says a lot about that person. If you have made it to your 20’s without seeing these movies, you have the capacity to willfully ignore one of the greatest achievements in film history.

You are purposefully keeping yourself from understanding countless pop culture allusions. It basically means that you will never fully enjoy Family Guy or Robot Chicken. If you doubt the cultural significance of Star Wars you have never seen them, and that is nothing more than willful ignorance.

We headed to the theater for the long awaited Toy Story and Toy Story 2 3D double feature. I was so excited! These are 2 of my favorite movies. I remember when I saw the first one with my family in 1995. I dreamed about it for weeks before. I'm sure it drove my parents nuts how much I talked about it. And here it was again! I don't remember any of the conversation between me and Sierra the rest of that night. It didn’t matter though; we never actually made it past small talk. Once we were in the theater, popcorn and soda in hand, I considered and ultimately decided against the safety seat between us in the theater, I was on a date after all. I am relatively certain though, that there was no hand holding or arm over the shoulder maneuver as these would have distracted from the movies.

Hours Later, once the movies were finished, I dropped her off at her mom's apartment, walked her to the door, gave her a hug, and said “I had fun, we’ll have to do this again.” And we did...

Coming Soon:

Part 2: What is a Woggie?

Coming Later:

Part 3: The Double Dare Date and the Mail Order Fiancé

Part 4: Sierra Strikes Back with A New Hope

Part 5: Political and Grammatical Correctness

Epilogue: The Long Good Bye