Wednesday, July 3, 2013

The Shoe Guy

Once upon a time, there was an adorable little freshman girl who had just come to college for her very first semester and thought everything was going to be nice and rosy and fun.

This girl had brown hair and red shoes. Her name was Ali.
Lacking in social skills but still inconceivably optimistic, she figured she would try out a student ward that housed mostly out-of-state students, but also allowed a cute little bunch of ragtag locals to attend.
Ali was one of those little ragtag local yokels.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, Ali was running late to church due to pet sitting.
She slunk in at the last minute, disheveled and out of breath, only to discover that veritably no seats were left for her to sit in.
This was unfortunate, in many regards, the foremost being this:
An older than youngish, baldingish man with emerald green pants smiled and patted one of the only seats remaining; the seat right next to him.
Grateful for a place to rest, Ali gracefully wobbled her way over on those shiny red heels and sat down next to him.
First words out of his mouth:
"Those are some really nice looking heels."
Ali thanked him and mentally prepared herself  for the upcoming ordeal of small talk.
This boy began to ask her an abundance of questions.
She would answer, but he would neither react to her answers nor answer the questions she asked him.

Ali's inability to be a human being compounded with this oddly one sided conversation was creating several levels of social nightmare hell. The immediate area had become a sort of vortex of painfully awkward, and several people were sucked in and were unable to speak or eat for several days.

All of this boy's conversations were punctuated with comments about the shoes.
He continued to focus on them, commenting on their nice shade and how well they looked.
This went on for minutes which turned into millenia.
Finally, he shrugged and pulled out his phone.
"Here," he whispered, "this will probably explain it better than I ever could.
He flipped through his pictures until he found the right one: the screenshot of a quote which read:

"I FIND IT FLATTERING WHEN GIRLS WEAR HIGH HEELS BECAUSE IT SHOWS THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO GO THROUGH A LOT OF PAIN TO LOOK TRULY BEAUTIFUL."

What? Just what. I honestly didn't even have anything to say.
If I remember correctly, I think I just nodded understandingly and said "oh."

Thankfully, at this point the meeting started.
This odd boy continued to sing the opening hymn a full octave lower than he was supposed to, all the while looking over at Ali and winking and elbowing her and whatnot.
Halfway through the meeting, the situation really deteriorated. Like, all the way.
He began whispering to himself.
What was he whispering???
Spells?
Incantations?
Secrets? Was it secrets?
The quiet conversation was getting erratic. He was gesturing and shaking his head and whispering and all Ali could do was lean away as subtly as possible.
AND THEN HE STARTED PUNCHING HIMSELF IN THE HEAD.
I must say, I was just sitting there praying that I would turn into a rock or dissolve or die.
Should I try to help him?
Should I run far away?
Should I alert someone?

After a while, he stopped.
At the end of the meeting, he turned to young Ali.
"So, Ali," he asked, smiling slyly, "do you think we could... do something sometime?"
Ali, being the smooth criminal that she was, simply said
"Well I'm really busy this semester but  hey I'll let you know!"
Before awkwardly moonwalking backwards out the door.*
He again tried the next week to flirt, chasing her down and very rudely scuffing Ali's friends shoes in the process, but she once again kinda bailed and
after that, he just kinda gave up.
Ali was a little scarred, but recovered and is still in control of most of her mental faculties, although that hasn't been proven so there's no way to know for sure.



*pretend the moonwalking happened


 

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