Soul Ska and Mr. Makeout

[waffleton]

so, i went to see Deal's Gone Bad tonight in Chicago with my cousin Nora. not a terrible night, but not the best night either. i ended up sailing through the drive, no traffic and parked a block away. off to a great start. get a drink, find her with her husband and all her friends, cool. but i'm terribly out of place, not only am i the youngest one there by at least 6 years, it's not my crowd of people. she eventually catches on to the fact that i know no one and am trying to butt in on any conversation i can relate to and comes over to talk to me for a bit, but we run out of things to talk about. this is what normally happens when i get together with any of my relatives. we're all very close knit nuclear pods, but together i feel alienated from them all. perhaps it's because my pod is the youngest group, but i feel perpetually like i'm 5 and am hovering around the big kids trying to get their attention. maybe i should take Mairghread's advice and work an invisibility spell before i go to family get togethers. anywho, she was mostly preoccupied with her hubby, who is pretty cool as well. finally the band goes on. the room is incredibly tiny, the music is mediocre, i've never heard the band before, the temperature is about 115 and finally it's over, one more song to go and this guy next to me tries to dance with one of Nora's friends and she just looks at him half smiles and goes back to watching the band. so i tell him "it was worth a shot" and he says "Yeah. I just wanna dance with somebody. Would you dance with me?" so of course being the nice girl i am but mostly bored anyway, i dance with him. some sort of weird ska-swing-spinning hybrid type of dance off beat because he had to have been pretty drunk or very white. so we dance to one song, it's mildly amusing and at the end he goes in for the kiss on the cheek. i think "oh, that's kind of sweet" so i oblige and then he does what every drunk guy is bound by nature to do, he goes in for the makeout kiss. turns his head and just plants one on my mouth, tongue all gross and i clamp my mouth shut and push him away. I say "no, i'm spoken for" to which he replies "So am I" and before i can even blink he's on me again. and i smile and push him off. a few moments later he says "it's alright as long as they don't find out, right?" and i know he's gotta be drunk because he's not being sleazy, but totally earnest about it. i look at him sideways and scoot away a bit thanking god the band is done. but oh, not yet, they still have the encore, two more songs. the guy says to me "you're my dance partner for the night right?" and i say "sure, but only dancing" so, only because i know he won't piss off until either the band leaves or i kick him in the balls, i dance with him for one more song, well, not so much dance with as dance next to him. and then, miracle of miracles, he manages to convince some other girl behind me to dance and i scoot up by my cousin, who laughs and says "you've got a new best friend." not such a great night. and by the time it's over it's too late to go to Ray's and shake it off and end the night with a kiss from the man i do love, so i drive home and as i'm going 50 and trying to figure out if this one restaurant is still open at 1AM, some kid crossing the street at that exact moment shouts into the window of my car, perfect timing, and scares the crap out of me. made me sorry i missed hitting him.

but hey, at least my van is back after a month at the dealership. despite the fact that they left me with not even enough gas to get home and had it sitting in the parking lot with the window open and the key in the ignition. something tells me they never want to see that van again. now maybe we can sell it and get me a car that works.

apparently music either needs to have a stand up bass or a synthesizer for me to be interested in it these days.

MK