An introduction...

This blog is dedicated to my friend Brad.

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I have come to the conclusion that I must carry myself in a very approachable, welcoming manner because I know plenty of women much better looking than myself that do not have nearly as many ridiculous stories as I do about absurd interactions with what I can only describe as "creepy men."

It started back in high school when I was 16 and working at Dairy Queen. In retrospect, it's pretty hard to believe that anyone would ever think that the drive-thru window of a fast food burger joint was an appropriate or effective location for picking up on teenage girls: "So that was 2 medium cookie dough blizzards and a large fry. Anything else for you today?" Response- "Yeah, your phone number maybe?" Keep in mind that this was over the intercom; the guy can't even see me at this point so it has nothing to do with my looks. He's just a creep. Later I would be described as a "better looking version of Lisa Loeb" (some 90's indie musician I had to Google, and the only reason I look like her is my glasses) and still later a middle aged man would ask me if I was engaged and when I responded with an emphatic "No" he would respond with, "So you're available then?"

Switching jobs from fast food to drive-thru coffee did not serve to alleviate the awkward encounters with men. If anything, working alone in a small coffee kiosk made it even worse. There were the men driving the Mustang convertible who offered to pick me up after work to go for a ride. There was the guy who walked across the parking lot from the Arby's to invite me to a party, and then sent his friend over to tell me I was cute. However, I think the best/worst story from my time at Coffee Rush was a truck driver. Due to the large size of his 18-wheeler, this older gentleman parked his rig and walked up to the window. While I was getting his coffee he leaned in the window to chat, which was a little awkward, but not terribly abnormal for walk-up customers. As I approached the window to give him his drink, he asked me to turn around so he could see the back of my shirt. Now, before you go telling me that I walked right into this one, let me say that the shirt I was wearing was black with hot pink, sparkly words on it, so I really did think he wanted to see what it said. Like a naive little fool, I turned around and let him "read the back of my shirt." He mumbled, "You something something something." Not really hearing what he said but knowing it was in a positive tone, I proceeded to nod and smile, agreeing with him, "Yeah!" He laughed and asked me if I had actually heard what he said. When I embarrassingly admitted that I hadn't, he repeated, much more slowly and clearly, "You have a really nice ass." Absolutely mortified, I thanked him, told him to have a nice day, and made a point to find some remedial task to take care of, so as to end the business transaction gone terribly wrong. After he had driven away, I noticed he had tipped me $5.

Now some of you may be wondering why I mentioned my friend Brad. It's because he has a fanatic, if somewhat bizarre, obsession with hearing stories about my awkward encounters with strange men. He has been telling me for a couple years to write a book of all these stories. While I am not going to such great lengths to share the hilariously ridiculous situations I have found myself in, I will start posting them to this blog, so that somewhere they will live on, recorded for his reading pleasure.