Fake Husbands and other things my fake boyfriends should know about

I have a good friend at my office who I have known for many years. I'm friends with his whole family and consider him to be one of my most trusted friends in the workplace. Apparently the feeling is mutual because he talks about me at home often enough that his wife jokingly refers to me as his "radio wife."

So the other day he came into work and said he had a funny story to tell me. His five-year-old daughter turned in a short workbook paper at school. When she brought it back home to show her parents, they were rather horrified to see what she wrote. Her assignment was to write short sentences using number words such one, two and three. I faithfully reproduce her paper here for your review, along with the teacher's comments in parenthesis.)

Pizza is my number one food. (Mine too!)

Mom has two daughters.

I leave school at three. (Yes!)

Dad has two wives. (Wow! :))

And that, my friends, is why you should never joke about having a radio wife.

Fake Boyfriends...and other things I found

Ask and ye shall receive, they always say. Well friends, I got an excellent fake boyfriend delivered to me that I can now use in all situations wherein a fake boyfriend is required. Here's the story...I showed up to an event where a good friend of mine was sitting at a table all alone. He called out to me and said I should come sit next to him. Naturally, I made a quip about how if we sat together alone at the table we might need to have a DTR. Of course, he knew I was just joking. However, the leader of the event was standing nearby and overheard the comment.

Later in the course of the evening, the leader was up front talking and made a joke about how some people in the audience might not be paying attention to what he was saying because they were probably distracted by "that special someone" sitting next to them. He then pointed at us and said "like that guy in the back corner sitting with Laurie."

Cue the entire room turning to look back at us sitting together.
Add the unfortunate timing that I had literally just leaned over to say something to my friend, which resulted in giving the impression that we were rather cozy with one another.

My face turned about a dozen shades of red and I waved off the stares, stammering "no, no...you've got the wrong idea."

The damage was done. But God, in His infinite wisdom, provides all our needs. Including fake boyfriends.

Why I like Starbucks

I know Starbucks is a corporate giant and I should support my local coffee shop...blah blah blah. I get it. But Starbucks keeps me coming back for two reasons: convenience and customer service.

I don't buy into the whole "we're so cool that we can't be nice to you" mentality that often accompanies the local coffee house scene. And while there's a lot to be said for the charm and uniqueness of neighborhood shops, they're often not easy or convenient to access.

All that said, I don't have exclusive loyalty to the Starbucks brand. But that might change after today. I recently moved to a new part of town, which means finding the new locations in my area. This morning on the way to work, I went to the Starbucks with a drive-through that's near my house.

As I pulled up to the intercom, the barista inside said "Good morning, Sweetie. What can I get for ya?"
It threw me off for a moment. The thought went through my mind "what if I had been a man? Can the barista see me, or do they just take a guess and hope for the best?" To complicate matters, I couldn't tell by the voice whether the person on the other end of the intercom was an older black woman, or a gay man.

After I placed my order, the barista said "alright Baby, come on up."
Erm...okay.

When I got to the window, I still couldn't tell if the person was an older black woman or a gay man. Either way, the sweetie and baby didn't bother me...I was just surprised. Then the other guy at the window leaned out and asked "do you want a piece of lemon cake?"

I told him I didn't order any lemon cake. "I know," he said. "But I have an extra piece here and I thought you might want to have it. Here ya go."

So Sweetie Baby drove off with a piece of lemon cake thinking this might be my favorite Starbucks location.

The reason Mr. Rogers did what he did

Fake Boyfriends...and other things I need to learn to lie about

My company recently hired a new custodial staff. Last week, as I was leaving the office, I happened to get on the elevator at the same time as one of the new custodians. I smiled and said "hey how's it going" thinking we would just leave it at that. Nominal elevator chit chat is all I had in mind.

He smiled back, asked me how I was and then said "so did you have a nice weekend?"

As we all know, this is very safe workplace conversation, so I felt comfortable with engaging in further discussion.

"Oh yes, it was very nice. The weather was so gorgeous. I really enjoyed it."

"Yeah," he eloquently said. "And how bout your Valentine's Day? Was that good?"

Oh no. This is NOT safe workplace conversation. This is more like a "I'm trying to find out if you're seeing someone" conversation.

"Umm, well you know. Valentine's Day was alright," I warily replied. Then I looked back at the elevator door, silently willing it to go faster.

"Oh...so did you spend it with your sweetheart?" he persistently queried.

"Uh...well I don't know if I would use the word 'sweetheart,'" I hedged. "You know how it goes."
I laughed, nervously.

"What? You don't have a sweetheart?!"

Blast. This isn't working. I'm going to have to lie.

"Oh you know...sweetheart isn't always the word I use for him. More like 'guy who can't get his act together' if you know what I mean," I said with a pained smile.

"Oh yeah, I hear ya," he sympathized. "But you're gonna get tired of that. You'll want something different. That won't last."

Just then the elevator door opened, I chuckled and agreed that it probably would get old after awhile and practically jogged down the hall, calling out "have a good one!" over my shoulder.

I'm clearly going to have to get better at making up fake boyfriends and the details of our relationship. It can't be a good sign that my made-up boyfriend is a loser and our relationship is going downhill. If I can't even make the imaginary relationships work, what hope is there?!

Mmmm...Habanera

Do I Know You? (Said in Steve Martin voice)

Last night I called into my local Chinese restaurant to pick up some soup to go (shout out to hot and sour soup!). When I walked in, another customer was waiting for his to-go order as well. He joked with me to shut the door quickly and I smiled and acknowledged how cold it was outside. That was my first mistake. Apparently my smile and response was enough to make him treat me as though we were buddies who had known each other many moons.

He looked at me, winked at the hostess and remarked on my hair and glasses, noting they were the same color. Then he proceeded to comment on my wardrobe, noting the embroidered flowers on my gloves, the type of shoes I was wearing and the logo on my purse. He actually touched my person (which is a bit like touching my person, for the record) and said "MK...what does that mean?" I told him it was a designer and then turned around and studied the various ads and notes tacked to the wall behind me.

He kept up a running commentary the entire time, trying to get my attention and force conversation. I responded as minimally as I could. Our food came out at the same time and he walked out of the restaurant right behind me. As I walked to my car, he exclaimed "Oh look at that. You drive a Mini. A red one, too! I guess there's a theme going on here."

I silently got in my car and waited for him to exit the parking lot before driving home myself. I don't think he was a creep...more likely just someone who doesn't understand inappropriate familiarity. But it really boggles me how men can be that clueless about social interaction with women. I mean, don't they realize how uncomfortable that makes us and how vulnerable we feel when a total stranger invades our physical and psychological space?

I swear, I attract the weirdos.

Picture and...Trample

This past weekend, I had dinner with a good friend and her family. They aren't a family I spend very much time with, so it was nice to get to know them a little better and find out more about their stories and family dynamic.

During the course of the evening, my friend's mother questioned me multiple times about my dating life and asked lots of questions about the reasons I'm not dating anyone. I told her I often lack confidence and it also seems like I get overlooked or not noticed by the men around me. She then gave me the following advice (which left me and her own daughter rolling in laughter.)

1. Picture it.
"Girl, you gotta picture yourself with the things you want!" she declared. "If you like a guy, you need to picture yourself dating him! You picture yourself as confident and available and you picture him as liking you and you just keep picturing what you want until you get it!"
(Nota Bene: When some girls do this, it's called having the Crazies. I recommend not straying into the Crazies territory.)

2. Trample!
"You need to stop being insecure about whether a guy likes you and you just trample anyone who gets in your way!" At this point I had to ask for clarification as to what exactly she meant by "trample." "When I say trample, I mean if there are other girls around that guy, you get in there and make sure he notices you! You don't back off just because there's some competition. You go talk to him and sit next to him and ask him about his day and make sure he knows you're there and you're available."

She also gave me strict instructions that when I go to church (which is where a lot of the single men I know happen to be) I am not allowed to sit at a table with just girls. "You walk into that room, look for a guy you'd like to get to know and you go sit next to him and start talking!"
"Yes ma'am," I meekly said.

Driving home with my friend that night, we laughed and laughed about her mom's advice to picture and trample. We both agreed there was some truth to the Picture advice...in the sense that it's important to believe good things about ourselves...to believe that I am attractive, confident, worthy etc...
Neither of us could go so far as to support the trample theory...but it provided much amusement.

So I have to tell you, when I went to church on Sunday, her advice was ringing in my ears. I walked into the classroom thinking "Picture it! Picture what you want. Picture that it could happen."

And within ten minutes, I not only pictured...I also trampled. True story. :)