Just Off Center

Lunch today was at Taco Bell. Of course I didn't want to stuff myself with that garbage, but the other two guys insisted. The two guys are Richard and Mike. Richard is the guy who would have you believe that he's incredibly smart and funny. He's actually a rube. He always has a story that trumps whatever story you have. Most of these stories are bullshit. Richard is really a nice enough guy. You just wish that he'd stop trying so hard. That and he talks way too loud and says things that he thinks make him sound cool, but actually make him sound like a putz. He's been married for a few years and has two kids and three enormous dogs.

Mike is the same Mike from earlier posts. Mike is 33, tall, strongly built, balding, and has a big head. You remember those Tropicana Orange Juice commercials where some guy would jam a straw right into an orange? That's Mike. Mike comes from the Midwest, is a racist, a womanizer, and an extremely paranoid and private man. He is divorced and has no kids.

So after we all got our respective south-of-the-border treats we sat down and started talking. Since nonce of us really pay much attention to sports we had to resort to basically laughing at each other. Guys can do that. Girls would just start crying. Mike makes fun of my gut, I make fun of Richard's social ineptitude, and Richard makes fun of Mike's bald head. And then the cycle reverses. It's great fun. About two minutes into our meal three girls came in. They seemed like friends. They were all pretty thin and well groomed. They all had similar shoulder lengths, highlighted hair. Two of them were wearing their white outfits from the Aesthetics Institute down the road. They must have been students. They made their orders and sat down at the table next to us, the closest girl back to back with Mike.

Around this time we're making hypothetical "Book of Questions" type scenarios for each other. For a million dollars would you leave your life and never return? Would you suck our boss' dick? Would you get ass raped by five guys? Would you let another man have sex with your wife? Would you play one round of Russian Roulette? Would you lop off your non-dominant hand? For the record my answers were no, yes, yes, yes, yes, and no. Of course each scenario had to be qualified before an answer was given. Will anyone know about it? If I get shot can Nina have the money? Are they disease free? Is the million taxable?

As we continue our discussion, within which I was the most willing to do these things for my money, the girls next to us are getting up one by one refilling their drinks and getting napkins and shit. One of them walked by us, gave Mike a glance and then bent over the counter to ask an employee a question while pointing her slightly rocking ass at us. Since we were all against a wall I could watch the girls by looking at their reflections in the window. The two students had such terrible acne. How is that possible? Would you trust and aesthetician with zits? Mike isn't really paying much attention to them either. He already has three girlfriends as it is. Plus with Christmas coming up, he's going to have to start cutting them loose.

For a brief moment Richard stopped talking, allowing me the opportunity to listen in to their conversation. They were doing as all girls do when they group together during daylight hours: bitching. I only was able to make out one small portion of one of the students' monologues:

"And I'm like, hello? And then she comes over and is all like what. And I'm like yeah, I need an instructor to look at this. And she's just like well are you done? I'm like oh my God would I even have asked if I wasn't? (insert popping breath noise here) So she's all well just wait a minute, so I'm like fine, what the fuck ever. God what a fucking bitch"

Now in order to really understand what was happening here you have to try and read this out loud and in less than ten seconds. The other two girls sat there, riveted by this unleashing of girl power into the room. It was cause enough for each of them to air their own story of unfair treatment of the young, pretty (chuckle), single white girl.

After a few minutes more of Mike and Richard asking me a series of hypotheticals that generally involved some kind of anal intrusion we were running out of things to discuss. The girls got up before we did to throw away their wrappers. I was impressed with their consumption, however. Homegirls knew how to put down some nachos belgrande. So as they each get up, in turn, to go the trash can that was the furthest away they rest groomed themselves for the trip back to school. The one girl who was facing us stood up and for absolutely no reason whatsoever lifted up her smock. We could all see her cute little overtanned tummy with the cubic zirconium belly ring. She just held her shirt there for about three seconds and then dropped it and threw away her trash. The other two, not to be outdone, took their own turns inexplicably lifting up their shirts so that we could all see their cute little flat(ish) bellies. Even Mike had to admit that this was pretty ridiculous.

So we got up and threw away our trash and as we left we noticed that the girls were now sitting outside talking and smoking. This couldn't be done somewhere else. As we approached them the conversations stopped, and not even in such a way as to let us think that this was just a natural lull in discussion. We walked past, without interruption and continued our hypothetical queries all the way back to work. The girls were never mentioned. We did learn, however, that I am the only one who would consent to letting his wife get tapped by another man for a million bucks. My explanation? A million bucks is a good chunk of money, and I'm enough of a freak that I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't like it. Might as well get paid to find out.