Sittin' On the Ritz

I was waiting in line for coffee at the coffee place this morning, and way ahead of me at the counter was a girl wearing a really great skirt.

I thought, "That is such a great skirt."

Then I started thinking that I wanted to tell her what a great skirt that was, and I began to debate the potential creepiness of a comment to a strange girl about the greatness of her skirt. Eventually, it was my turn to order coffee and I forgot about the skirt.

As I was creaming and sugaring my coffee, the girl with the great skirt appeared next to me, creaming and sugaring her coffee. Without even thinking, I said, "That is such a great skirt, I wish I could pull it off."

Of course, what I meant to do in that split second that the words were coming out of my mouth was to nullify the potential creepiness/aggressiveness of my comment with a joke about how I wanted to wear the skirt, thereby feminizing and dorkifying myself so as to seem less threatening.

That's what I meant to do, but it sounded like a cheap pickup line about how I wanted to take her clothes off.

Amazingly, she started laughing right away, even before I said, "Oh, wow, I did NOT mean it like that, I can't believe what I just said," and she started joking about how the skirt comes in many different sizes, and she was sure I could kind one to fit me, however, now that she thinks about it, she did buy the skirt in Sri Lanka, and so the price of a plane ticket might make the skirt prohibitively expensive.

Then we bantered for a while longer in an amazingly effortless and enjoyable exchange.

And I'll never ever see her again.

THE END