Temerity Jane

So The Redhead has been on me to write up the rest of my week of misbehavior for quite some time. It started here, if you’ll recall, with me unleashing my small-fisted, foot-stomping brand of fury on some jackass (and his kids, whoops) in a McDonald’s parking lot.

Well, my out of character behavior only gets better on Tuesday.

I hit on a guy.

Ok, right, so what happened was this. I went outside to have a cigarette, and a rather cute looking fellow was coming across the parking lot. He didn’t work in my building, but was with a company that was doing some work on the buildings, if that makes sense to you.

So I checked him out, in the bold ‘yes, I am checking you out and I don’t care that you see me checking you out because I think you should know I am appreciating you’ kind of manner. So he looks at me, walks to his van to get something out. I am wandering the loading dock smoking, he empties a bucket into the trash, looks at me again and kind of smiles, and starts walking away, but KEEPS looking back at me. Repeatedly. And ridiculously. I mean like, every 3 steps, looking back over his shoulder at me, all the way across the parking lot. So now I am nervous, and start NOT looking at him. Because were we doing that ‘mutual interest but both pussies’ kind of thing… or was he doing the ‘is that crazy bitch STILL LOOKING AT ME?’ thing???

And then, still getting used to my new ballsy manner, I scurried inside to tell The Redhead all about it. Her suggestion involved Mardi Gras beads and yelling, but we soon came to a better idea.

The Redhead: you’re a GIRL
The Redhead: use your WILES

We went back and forth for a bit with ridiculously clever lines, as she and I are ridiculously clever people, but then she came up with a stroke of brilliance.

The Redhead: you should
The Redhead: post a missed connection to craigs list
The Redhead: print it out
The Redhead: and put ito n his windsheild

And while normally this would be something I would simply laugh at and not have the nerve to do, within minutes I had a post up on Craigslist, printed out, and in my hand with my card stuck to it.

Title: RandomCompany Employee, Possibly Creeped Out.

Post:

You: RandomCompany employee with cute hair and studded belt just trying to do your job in our parking garage.
Me: Weird chain smoking female who almost got hit by a car in the parking lot and then ran out of reasons to be in the parking lot.

Want to go somewhere less dangerous? I promise not to stare…

Now, not yet being completely made of balls, I handed it to a co-worker and sent him downstairs with instructions on where to place it.

This created a bit of a kerfluffle, see, as my co-worker did not, in fact, place the posting on the van, but instead handed it to one of the guy’s co-workers. However, it did get delivered to him, and this now being much like high school, I had to sneak out the front of the building for the rest of the day to smoke, because oh my god, what if he DID think I was psycho!

So, the rest of the day goes by, tra la la, and I head home from work. As soon as I got home, I logged back into my work e-mail. Cellphones don’t work inside this building, see, and a while ago I took advantage of an offer through Guy Kawasaki’s blog to try out Spinvox. Spinvox converts all of my voicemails to text and emails them to me, which is very convenient, since I can read messages right at my desk and decide if it is a call I need to return immediately, or if I don’t need to hump all the way downstairs with my cellphone right then. Anyway, wait, what?

Right, so I log into my email, and there’s a voicemail, and it just says “Hello.” Nothing else. The number was local, and, taking a gamble, I called right back.

TJ: This is kind of weird, but is this the guy I creeped out in the parking lot earlier today?

Guy: No, no…

TJ: Oh…

Guy: I wasn’t creeped out at all, I was definitely looking at you.

Wee! So he and I ended up talking for about 10 or 15 minutes. About our jobs, where we lived… now unfortunately, it became very clear to me very quickly that this guy was not the brightest bulb. All my jokes went right over his head, he had no idea what a Craigslist post was, he even said… and I hate to repeat this… he even said “Oh, I don’t like computers.” But, you know, he was cute, he seemed very sweet – he kept telling me over and over how pretty he thought I was, and we made arrangements to meet the next day after work for a drink, as he would be working in the area for one more day.

So, like I said, we talked for 10 or 15 minutes, and while I knew this wasn’t really going to go anywhere ever, since I’m a huge snot when it comes to, you know, being intelligent enough to string a few multi-syllable words together at a time, and about getting my jokes because, come on, wit and charm is what I do, I knew it’d be cool at least to get out with someone new, have a drink. And, you know, he WAS really cute.

Now of course, upon hanging up, I immediately scampered over to my computer to relate this all to The Redhead, but before I closed my work email, I noticed another voicemail had come in – I guess the first one was a false start.

This is the voicemail, taken directly from my email. Make some allowences for voice-to-text technology and for not-so-well-spoken males, and it makes sense.

Hello [TJ], this is [Guy] with [RandomCompany] my boss gave me your letter today. Like to say that I’m very flattered, I think you’re a beautiful, beautiful sexy, sexy women. I will be working in the other building in as same involvement the 3rd one over. So tomorrow I’ll give you a call sometime maybe we can hook up after I get done working. I’ll you a call tomorrow. Alright Bye. 

So, that’s how the Tuesday ended. I hit on a guy in a distinctly nerdy fasion (Craigslist post? Come on!), it totally went over his head, but he was cute and I agreed to go out with him the next night.

So, the story really starts to get good on the Wednesday and the Thursday. On the Friday, I lose my mind.