Class and chocolate don't mix.

Clearly, most things I do are done with class.

And also clearly, most things I do are completely and entirely situation-appropriate.

So it should be clear to you that, one, all my known associates are equally classy, and two, I can be trusted to act honorably at a work function.

Let me share with you what may be the two exceptions to those otherwise clearly accurate claims.

I met a cute boy a few weeks ago. We've spent a little time together, but not much. I don't hear from him a lot and I'm playing hard-to-get (whoever just snickered, screw you) (mom if that was you that's just rude) so our communications, mostly texts, are sporadic. Last Friday night I was out for a happy hour cocktail with a friend, celebrating my new black-out curtains and discussing the situation. Her take: forget him. Someone should dote on me. Adore me. Pursue me, goddammit. (This was, clearly, well into happy hour. And she's oddly emphatic about my love life.) Bottom line, I shouldn't waste my time on some guy who comes and goes without much thought. He wasn't worth talking about for one more minute. So we started talking about Adam Levine instead. Cute boy was not mentioned again.

It goes without saying, then, that she was less amused than I was the next morning - about 11am on a lovely, peaceful Saturday - when he texted me this picture:

with the simple caption: "yay or nay?"

Well, come on. Really. That's just funny. I like funny. I like clever and witty and flirty. She pointed out I don't actually know him well enough to have any idea at all whether he was even trying to be any of those things. Her unique and unexpected take on it was perhaps he was kind of a perv, and/or had a very particular opinion on what kind of girl I am. Hmm. Well. When you put it that way. So I decided to be grossly morally offended, and I haven't given him a moment's thought since then.

Until today, when my team had an outing to a chocolate factory. (Yep.) We could taste chocolate, smell it, write on it, even fill molds with it and have fun chocolate-shaped things to play with. Kelly made a baseball for her son. Tiffanni made flowers for our executive assistant who couldn't be there. Marissa made a guitar. I made this:

Which was really funny in theory, until I realized my boss - and my boss's boss - were there, and perhaps they wouldn't think that was very funny at all. No worries. I'll just keep it on the downlow. There's a lot going on and there's just chocolate flying everywhere. Who's going to notice a silly set of chocolate handcuffs? No one.

No one except Tom the owner, who loudly announced, "Hey, are you making handcuffs?! That's great! I have this special box I'm trying to give away!" (You've no idea the willpower it took not to respond, "Me too, Tom. Me too.") So Tom set about tracking down the special handcuff box (?), while hollering at me from the other side of the room, "So, do you know a cop? Is this a present?" I mumbled it was for my dad. Seriously, you guys, I said "my dad." No amount of therapy will ever let me take that back.

I finally got the damn things hidden away and out of sight, when Tom, love that guy, noticed the only thing I'd made from the mold were the handcuffs.

So now I have a chocolate badge, a chocolate walkie-talkie, and a chocolate fucking billy club.

So... this is happening.

Three bits of backstory I think might be helpful to know before we get into this.

     1. While my character quirks are many, I am not a particularly flaky person. I’m not overly forgetful, I’m relatively well organized, and on most days, I can at least fake it pretty well that I’ve got my shit together.

     2. I do not enjoy my own nakedness. I just don’t spend an excessive amount of time naked. Ask any of my exes.

     3. I have kittens. Kittens who like to play and bat at anything, especially string. Like the strings that hang down when the blinds are closed. So, they stay open. You can already see where this is going, can’t you smart reader.

Okay. I think we’re ready.

Yesterday at lunch, I reached for my darling little Rebecca Minkoff change purse that doubles as my wallet so I don’t have to haul my giant ass suitcase of a handbag around everywhere. It wasn’t there. Huh. I didn’t really panic – I’d gone to the grocery store late the night before, so I knew it couldn’t be too far – and I just banked on the fact that I’d tossed it on the kitchen counter and forgotten to put it back in my purse.

So when I got home from the gym last night, I dropped my gym bag on the floor, jumped in the shower, put on my awesomely unsexy single-girl PJs, and went about the business of looking for my wallet. Not on the kitchen counter. Hmm. Not on my dresser, or in the little spot where I toss my keys and work badge every night. (See point 1.) Not in the refrigerator, or the bathroom, or the bin in the spare bedroom where I’d put away the toilet paper. Not on the arm of the couch, or in between the couch cushions, or under the couch where all non-cat-toys-that-the-cats-play-with go to die. Not in the apartment, apparently.

Panic was coming. I hate panic. But, because I’m not used to losing things, I lose my shit when I lose shit. I started pacing and making weird little whiny whimpering noises. Maybe the front seat of the car? Ah yes. Of course. Must’ve tossed it onto the passenger seat after loading groceries.

So I took my awesomely unsexy PJ’ed self outside and was bent over the car seat feeling a lot of crumbs but no wallet when I noticed I had an audience. An adorably pudgy neighbor guy was walking his dog, and clearly afraid I was ransacking a car. I’d gotten a little frantic, made worse by the enormous plastic bag taking up space and visibility in the backseat. (My wedding dress. Another time.) My boxer shorts had ridden up and my tank top was askew. He’d given up all pretense of tending to the Shepherd muzzled at his side and was just staring. Even the Shepherd was staring. I slammed the door shut and started to scurry back inside, when I thought, I should go look where I was parked last night. Maybe it was in my lap and fell out. So I wandered over, shoeless and braless, and turned in circles around an empty parking spot. Now he just looked fascinated, and I became acutely aware that I looked not unlike a homeless crackhead.

“Excuse me.” Nice boy. Wants to help me look for whatever I’ve misplaced. Or perhaps to offer me a stint in rehab.

“Um, this might sound weird, but I, gosh, I just wanted to tell you that, well, when I was walking my dog earlier, I saw you changing.” Sweet, embarrassed chubby boy who probably doesn’t talk to a lot of girls.

I instantly burst into tears. Obviously. I live on the second floor, and my bedroom window faces the back of the property, so I just don’t give a lot (enough) thought to the fact that I’m not alone in the world. But really, someone would really have to have wandered off the beaten path to see my window. Unless it was dark out and the light was on, I guess. Shit.

“Oh god. I’m mortified. Thank you so much for telling me. Seriously, I am so embarrassed.” Crying, crackwhore version of me.

“Oh, don’t be. I didn’t tell you so you’d be embarrassed. I wanted to tell you... you are very attractive.” Fat, sweaty boy who clearly doesn’t talk to a lot of girls.

Whaaaaa?

Blink, blink, sniffle. “Thank you?” I’m happy to know about myself that even when stunned into tearful confusion, my impeccable manners don’t fail me. Thank you, mom and dad, for teaching me to be polite. Indiscrete, maybe, but polite.

“So, like, do you have a boyfriend?” Obese, crazy-eyed boy who has never had a girlfriend ever.

Wait, WHAT? What the fuck did you just say? Did you seriously just tell a crying girl that you’d looked into her second floor window, watched her get buckass naked, and then try to hit on her?

“I mean you probably do because I feel like most girls who look like you always seem like they have boyfriends.” Creepy, creepy, creepy boy who apparently thinks that what is upsetting to me about this entire situation is the implication that I might not have a boyfriend.

Manners gone.

“Uh, yes. A big one. Two actually. And a husband see there’s a wedding dress in my car to prove it. And a dad and a couple of grown sons. Even my cats are boys.”

Seriously, you fat fuck with your dumb dog, who opens up a conversation that way? Was the thought process that you’ve already seen my goodies, so why not let you touch them? That you did me a favor by telling me I was exposed to all of The Farms’ late-night dogwalkers, so I should do you a favor in return? I mean, on one hand, way to play the statistics, dude. You throw enough out there and the odds just tell you that eventually, something’s got to stick. I, however, do not wish to stick to you.

I ran inside, turned off all the lights, put on two bras and a sweater, and slept under the bed.


How does this stuff happen to me?


Epilogue: my wallet was at Kroger.

Wednesday's Observation

For those of you not familiar with Ohio, there's this particular time of night, at this particular time of year, when the sky is just perfect. Dusk, twilight, sunset, whatever you call it, it marks the subtle beginning of another wonderfully hot, seemingly endless Midwestern summer.
Sure, there are sunsets everywhere. Every state. I've seen a good share of them. And they're all beautiful, in their own way. But none are quite like here. None have whatever it is Ohio puts into its air to make you feel young and carefree and open to life. The blue mixes with the yellow and the orange, and the world settles into soft light.
And as the color changes, the sounds change. Cicadas and crickets start their songs. Kids laugh and shout and splash and play in yards, because even though tomorrow's Thursday there's no school. All those sounds are lovely.
But I feel like I should stop here, to clarify and before I head too much further down that path. 
This is not about that.
This is about that perfectly right time, that perfectly right light and temperature, when you can put down the windows in the car and go really, really, really fast because the perfect song is playing, and it's compelling you to move.
You know that feeling? The wind (it's not a breeze. it's wind. seriously, i drive really, really fast.) coming in from every direction. Goosebumps, but good ones.
Crank it.
I propose we should all get a free pass - like in relationships, you know, when you get a few celebrities that you're allowed to sleep with if the opportunity every presents itself, as long as your significant other knows they're on The List? - for certain songs. No speeding tickets, no red lights, no douchebags that flick you off when you swerve around them screaming, "douchebag, fucking move." They aren't dancing songs, or slit-your-wrist songs, or memory lane songs or breakup songs or housecleaning songs. They're songs that are made for driving, fast, on nights just like this one.


Here are mine. For this drive, anyway.
1. The Cure, Just Like Heaven
2. Kings of Leon, Sex on Fire
3. Bush, Alien
4. Adele, Rumor Has It
5. The Verve, Bittersweet Symphony
6. Jakob Dylan, Something Good This Way Comes

**truly lovely photo, i think, found on flickr. thanks for sharing your images for those of us who only work in words.