This past weekend, I found myself at what the kids are calling a "hip, dive bar" called Anvil. While minding my own business, talking to a friend on the patio as he smoked a cigarette, a nice man named Tim decided to take it upon himself to tell us his life story. Tim came to America from Pakistan, got married, had a son, decided to become a surgeon, got divorced and shouldn't have been out drinking because he had to move out of the house the next day and go see his son play soccer. That, and he kept on insisting that my friend looked like Peter Weller. Not normal Peter Weller, but Robocop Peter Weller. This then became an entire discussion about Robocop and similar movies from the 80's. Before I knew it, we were having a full blown debate about Robocop, the Terminator and all bands in the 80's worth listening to.
Perhaps I should backtrack here for a moment. When Pakistani Tim first introduced himself to us, I use the word "us" loosely. He introduced himself to my friend, not me. I said, "I'm Helenita." He ignored me completely, eyes fixated on Robocop. I tried every once in awhile to get a word in edge-wise, but my interest in the likes of James Taylor and the Beatles was quickly shot down with, "So, did you know they're making a new Predator film?"
Normally not one to be ignored, I was baffled by the exclusion in the conversation. Then it dawned on me that perhaps Pakistani Tim was, in fact, not interested in me at all. I guess his whole sob story was meant to attract the bright blue eyes of my male companion. While I was stuck in a daze, mulling this over in my head, Peter Weller somehow managed to escape the grasping conversation and darted inside to grab another drink, leaving me alone with Tim.
Not two seconds after he was gone, Tim asked me if I thought he was handsome. Complete and utter confusion washed over me and the only response I could muster was, "Well, I think the guy I'm here with is more handsome than you, so I'm gonna just go ahead and go inside." I guess I just don't have it in me to say, "Um, well, you see the thing is, you just spent the past 15 minutes talking to my friend about the Terminator, Robocop and the Cure while completely disregarding every single word that came out of my mouth. On top of that, you're like 15 years older than I am and going through a divorce. So, to sum it up, no I don't think you're attractive and I'm just gonna go." Wouldn't life be so much easier if we were able to just say what we thought? Exactly what we thought at the moment we were thinking it?
After we escaped the death grip of Pakistani Tim, we went back inside for a bit until the bar closed. Then, upon our departure, Tim was waiting outside for a cab. Apparently he'd been waiting about 20 minutes and couldn't wait any longer, so he managed to talk us into giving him a ride home. Despite the fact that we didn't want to give him a ride home, we're both nice people and he didn't live too far, so we figured, what's the worst that could happen? He talked our ears off the ENTIRE ten minutes it took us to get from the bar to his house and when we pulled up to let him out, he asked us if we wanted to come inside for some, and I quote, "Sweet ganja." I just gave my friend that look of, let's get out of here before we become the sick plot of a horror movie. And with that, he dropped me off at home and I couldn't have been happier to be in the sweet safety of my apartment without Pakistani Tim, Robocop, the Governator or Ah-Ha.
I lied. Ah-Ha was there when I got home, but I didn't listen to them.
