The kind of awkward that you don't see coming until the individual words are slipping out of the person's mouth and you try like mad to dodge the hail of awkward that's bulleting towards you and wish you'd packed kevlar in the form of a strong drink order rather than the pansyass sweet tea you chose instead so you could at least take shelter behind a sheepish smile and boyish shrug that a GM on the rocks can afford. The situation was sticky, is what I'm getting at.
But much like [actor you like] in [that movie you enjoyed], I was able to extract myself from said sticky situation by just nodding and waiting the damn thing out. My dinner partner and I parted ways - she went wherever awkward people go at night and already being around the corner from Mason and not being in the mood to go home or be around anyone*, I thought I'd go longboard the parking deck from roof to ground level . At this time of night, there are only so many cheap thrills that provide just the right amount of risk & exhilaration without requiring you to pay to see boobs.**
*Note - you can be in a great mood and at peace with self, nature, and all its inhabitants and still not want to see another soul
**Not that there's anything wrong with that. I know plenty of homeschooled kids that think this is a grand way to spend time and money
I got to the parking deck coincidentally at the exact same time that I realized I did not actually want to longboard down the parking deck. I did, however, have my gym stuff in the car and figured I might as well do something productive. A fleeting image passed through my head of me riding my longboard on a treadmill. This seemed all good and well until I realized I had a craving for commercial overpriced sweet delicious frappaccino goodness and there's a Starbucks on campus right across from the parking deck. My messenger/man bag and laptop within also happened to be in my car, so grabbed that too. It's important to note here that there's nothing more masculine that a man owning and operating a man bag.
Jack Bauer will vouch for me on this
Drink purchased, table acquired. Even with the internets at my full disposal to wipe away the awkward events of the night, I eventually started focusing more on the people walking in more than focusing less on the magic that are lolcats and Daily Show recaps. Chronic people watcher, guilty as charged. First thing I noticed were that Starbucks at Mason has turned into the pregame capital. This is promising - much like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, Mason's party girls are adapting and realizing that a double shot expresso grande blast mocha venti (is that a real thing? I'm just trying to throw something out there that sounds like it has a lot of caffeine) will get them through the night as a starting drink much better than a double shot of Burnettes. So they can dance, dammit.
This girl is ready. Ready to dance.
Next thing that grabbed my attention in a choke hold, slapped it across the face, and told it "Now you'll never forget me" - three Chinese girls walked in, ordered their drinks...and left. As in they left without their grand mocha frappaccinos. Just left. Left my brain to explode. Not immediately, of course. I had to assume/hope that they would be back for their drinks because to consider anything else would be madness. 5,8,10,20 minutes later there drinks were still on the bar. Small, identical, sad. Much like I'm not imagining those three girls to be at this moment. Or did they do it on purpose? Was it a protest of sorts? Was it meant to be ironic? Did motherfreakin' Zordon page them to report for duty? These are the things I will always wonder. Eventually the baristas threw them away and a part of me died then - because I would have thoroughly enjoyed three free mocha frappaccinos.
Only the good die young
That's the point where the night's events reached the tipping point and I remembered that I'm the neglectful parent of a blog. I had my laptop. I had the ricocheting thoughts of the past couple hours. The world had to know.
