What are you gonna call me?

I love that joke. It is so stupid and barely fits but whenever someone says “I’m gonna call my mom/friend/chimp” my response is almost always “what are you going to call them?”

Well I imagine that lately when someone turns to their friend to utter those words about me, the conversation goes more like this (by the way, hasn’t it been just too damn long since I’ve done a dialogue?):

Andy’s Friend: I’m gonna call Andy.

Friend of Andy’s Friend: No! Don’t!

AF: Why not?

FoAF: Poison!

AF: Uh, yeah.

FoAF: Don’t call him!

AF: But–

FoAF: NO! Chickens! DANGER!

AF: That doesn’t even make sense!

FoAF: Doesn’t it?!

AF: No it doesn’t. It makes just as much sense as me coordinating doing something with Andy, and then not calling him.

FoAF: You’ll just have to take that chance.

AF: The…chance….of…calling..?…him?

FoAF: I don’t think you get it. He wants you to call!

AF: …right…

FoAF: But there’s poison!

AF: But I told him I–

FoAF: NO!

AF: So if I call Andy…

FoAF: Right…

AF: There will be poison?

FoAF: Right.

AF: And Chickens?

FoAF: Correct.

AF: And if I don’t call?

FoAF: Balloons! Clowns!

AF: Now you’re just listing things at a carnival! This is ridiculous.

FoAF: You’re not going to call him though, are you?

AF: Of course not. You’ve talked me out of it with your rigorous logic.

FoAF: Monkeys.

AF: Soup with gravy in it!

FoAF: …gross.

It just doesn’t make sense. No one is calling me, texting me, no one is doing anything in order to contact me these days. It’s like I’m Samuel Morse and everyone in the world is friends with Alexander Graham Bell. And he’s all like “Dude, peep this phone-sie!” And they’re all “Yee, Boy-eee!” And I’m like “But yo, the code! Don’t forget the code!” And then they’re like “…” (that’s them giving the peace-out sign as they walk away).

So.

What are you gonna call me?

Believe it or not, I am from the North East.

But you wouldn’t ever know it to look at me. Why? Because I don’t wear a Yankees or Red Sox anything. Ever. I don’t watch their games. I don’t even hop on the bandwagon when they inevitably make it to the playoffs (after some retarded “scare” that they won’t).

I hate the Yankees. And I hate the Red Sox.

Why? Because the fans are obnoxious. They’re loud, fair-weather, drunken idiots. A true fan is loud, drunken, knows what he/she is talking about, and faithfully watches as many games as possible win or lose.

One time my roommate asked me “you don’t even care a little bit about whether or not Boston beats Cleveland?”

Uh. No. I don’t. In fact, I constantly root for the Red Sox and Yankees to lose so their season will end. Because I want the stupid fans to shut up and go away for as long as possible.

Now, like every rule there is an exception here. That guy who is 278 years old who has been to every single Boston or Yankees game or has had season tickets since 1904. That guy is a fan. People who have been around the block and have and will always root for the team and pay attention to it and know what is going on with them. They are fans.

People who just like to get hammered and speculate about crap they don’t know about? Loud, drunken, obnoxious idiots.

Oh, go Manny! Oh, A-Rod finally doesn’t suck again! Hooray! Oh, Big Papi! Oh how can you NOT root for Derek Jeter!

This is how.

(picture me, crossing my arms and looking sternly at you and shaking my head)

The big bad wolf.

There’s nothing quite like re-entering the dating world. Especially after being at least somewhat restricted for the past however long it was. I’m sure women everywhere heaved a huge sigh of relief that they can be subjected to my wiles, delighted by my guile, and affected by my smiles once more. Also my keen sense of rhyming comes in handy a lot more than you’d think.

But the fact of the matter is I have never “dated” anyone. I have had girlfriends and I have been single. I have never gone on “dates” that were just “dating” and only recently realized that this new scheme allows me to actually go out with multiple girls at once. Which would be cool, I guess, if I could actually find more than one girl even one girl who is willing drunk enough to listen to my stupid crap for more than a couple of minutes.

So Friday rolls around like a barrel of monkeys and I am ready to go out. My week consisted of staying home every night and I had cabin fever so badly I was seeing stuffed animal heads everywhere and all the shirts in my dresser had turned to plaid. Because that’s what lumberjacks wear. And because they live in cabins. Get it?

Anyway, earlier in the week I had been in contact with a pretty cool gal who was nice enough to accompany me on a couple dates. I asked her to dinner but she gave me the ol’ “I can’t make it because I’ve got a bad case of…disliking you.” Actually she said she had a work thing on one night maybe, and that she’d let me know, but she’d be out Friday and Saturday so maybe we could meet up.

So Thursday makes it’s typical Thursday appearance, right before Friday and conveniently after Wednesday (it’s so predictable), and I was at lunch and realized – “Wait a minute…I haven’t heard from Mittens yet.” (I think people with pets names are hilarious, likewise I think pets with people’s names are also hilarious. Naturally this is not her real name). A quick text and, knowing the speed at which she typically responds, little anticipation for an immediate answer.

But then I didn’t get an answer.

It didn’t really dawn on me until Friday that she probably wasn’t going to ever speak to me again. I asked some females that I know who pretty much agreed that it was not necessarily a blow off, but the utter lack of response didn’t bode well. At this point I thought to myself “Self, you look handsome today and you sure do feel smart. Perhaps if you just wait until tonight, she’ll drop you a line and meet up as indicated in the text texted to you textually earlier in the week.”

This was sheer optimism, I told my typically-skeptical self, over and over. 10:30 arrives and, ding-dong!, I get a text message. I’m not sure why the doorbell rang at the same time. It was eerie. A few messages later and to my surprise I am notified that Whiskers (same girl, different name…just for fun) is headed down town. After asking if I was already out (I am pretty sure now, that I should’ve just said yes, rather than, no but I really want to go out) she let me know she’d keep me posted about where she ended up.

And posted is pretty much how I felt. Only more like I had actually been as active as a post due to the lack of posting which she kept me.

Remember how before I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to hear from her again but then I heard from her again? Well that is like now, only forget the last part, and add “positive” and subtract “pretty sure.” I know, Math and reading at the same time, gross.

But I don’t mind that she doesn’t want to hang out again. And I wouldn’t be offended if I found out she thinks I’m ugly or stupid or ugly AND stupid. But I don’t understand the unnecessary cruelty of actual lining a cloud with silver, and then burning the cloud up with a giant hole in the ozone layer of my heart (what?).

So if you could explain that one to me ladies, please do. Or don’t. In the meantime, I will try and find some other girls to blow me off.