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This weekend I planned on doing absolutely nothing and then
writing
about it, but I somehow found a way to screw even that up.
I considered it an exercise in writing. I wanted to lounge around and
describe my lazy weekend in as much drowsy detail as possible, all
while adding boob and fart jokes once in a while to keep the humor
level consistent with my past columns.
Naturally, my mission to have a weekend completely devoid of incident
failed miserably because of how completely ridiculous my life is.
Saturday I woke up in the early afternoon because I'm 22 years old
and can do whatever the hell I want. After eating ice cream for
breakfast, I played PlayStation (or as my grandmother calls every
video game system: "The In-Tendo") before lacing up to go running. I
ran, came home, took a bower and basically fell into a bizarre daytime
TV coma for about seven hours.
Everything was going great.
Cut to 1 a.m. A friend of mine called me to see if I had season three
of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on DVD. At first I told her yes, but then
answered honestly. She asked if anyone I knew had it and I told her of
two mutual friends who I knew owned it, one being asleep and the other
being on vacation in Florida.
Cut to 1:15 a.m. We're dressed in generic black crook clothing,
attempting to break into the home of the friend vacationing in
Florida. Except by "break into" I mean "I looked for a key for about
five minutes under the doormat then gave up."
Failing miserably usually gives me an appetite, so we decided to get
some food at a local diner that rhymes with Swaffle House. I proudly
sauntered into the diner, never more confident in my ludicrous
levels
of masculinity. Predictability should tell you my confidence didn't
last long.
The booths were full of people eating things like swaffles, so we sat
at the bar, which is always a good option for a skinny college boy in
a diner past midnight. I made smalltalk with my friend, seated to my
left, about something stupid like my future or the final destination
of my soul.
Then I heard a groan come from my right side.
I turned and saw an individual I think we've all met. I'm not sure of
his name, so let's call him Hobo McVagrant for now.
McVagrant wore a three-piece suit. The kind with the
college-professor-style pieces of suede on the elbows of the plaid
sport jacket. He wore an awesome '20s-style cap with a feather
sticking out of it. I would have wanted this hat if it wasn't for the
apparently creepy lunacy it instills in the wearer.
I smiled, ready to make a new friend, before having what would
ultimately be the most disturbing conversation of my life.
"Uuunnnggghhhh!" he said. Or moaned, I guess.
I nodded as though he made an interesting point, fake chuckled then
turned around, revealing a horrified face to my friend (I forgot to
put on makeup that evening).
I felt something brush up against my right leg.
"Hi," I said after slowly turning to face McVagrant again.
"You... You have a beautiful voice," he said.
I was kind of at a loss for words. I mean never received a compliment
like that. When rational thinking kicked in, I realized it came from a
70-year-old homeless guy.
"...It's alright," was all I managed to say. It also happened to be the
truth.
Now it is at this point I think I should address the fact that I'm
not homophobic. Not in the least. It's just that I'm
ridiculously-creepy-old-guy-who-kinda-keeps-brushing-up-against-me
phobic. He met all the criteria I considered necessary for a person to
be considered not only creepy but creepay.
All's I know is that only
one of his hands was in sight and he told me I had a beautiful voice.
And I was around 40 percent sure he wasn't a record exec from Los
Angeles. With a maple syrup mustache.
I turned around to face my friend again, only to see her laughing. I
appreciated the support.
"Uuunnnggghhhh!" he said again, driving his point even further home
this time.
Another brush against my leg. And not a hairbrush. Although abundance
of hair was a significant factor in why he was so creepy.
"Hey..." he stated, smiling.
"Yes?" I asked.
"You *muffled word*?"
Here's where my instincts kicked in. Usually if I'm in class and some
smokin' redhead asks me a question I didn't understand, I'll usually
just dumbly reply, "Oh, definitely." Because this was Hobo McVagrant, I
was able to think more clearly and I said, "Excuse me?"
"I said... Are you clean?" he
asked again, this time more clear/creepily.
"Oh. No, I'm... not?"
"Oh... I'm sorry," he said with a genuine apologetic look.
If you're reading this and asking yourself "What does that mean!?"
then consider us in the same boat. I almost asked him myself, but I
was afraid my tone would smudge the already spotless image he had of
my beautiful voice.
©2005 Tim Landry
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