May Days, Chapter 2: Socially networked

As I made my way to the bachelorette party, it became apparent that this was one of "those" bachelorette parties.  Adorned in inflatable male genitalia and things of the like, the bachelorette seemed like she was already in a good place.  She was a pretty attractive 25-ish year old woman, with a crew of 5-6 girls ranging from skag to as high as a 7.5.  I don't remember how I started the conversation, but I was pleasantly welcomed in and began exchanging the usual pleasantries, "How are you?", "What have you ladies been up to tonight?", and "Can I buy you a shot of Rumplemintz for your novelty penis shot glass?"  After about 15 minutes of talking, I persuaded them to come towards my group of friends on the other side of the bar.  They followed and on the walk I began chatting with one of the better looking friends (of course).  I learned that she was a lawyer and she seemed like a fun girl.  I introduced my friends and things were going really well for about 30 minutes.  My conversations with the lawyer were constantly interrupted by some of the less gifted girls in the group and things never did pan out, unfortunately.  Perhaps the best thing to come out of the bachelorette party was when Drabik approached the bachelorette and whispered softly into her ear, "If you weren't getting married, I would fuck the SHIT out of you..." To which she replied, "Thank you, that's so nice!" with a warm smile.  And they say chivalry is dead.  They resumed their trek to whatever their next bar was and we were left at Lionshead, a position not unlike the one we were in before the bachelorette party.  The upstairs wasn't as Rick's-ish that night so dancing was very limited.  We eventually left, but I felt content with how things went.

We did meet up with some old high school friends again, ex-girlfriend Steph K. included.  However, at this point her countdown to Mongolia for the Peace Corps had reached the single digits of days and we all know how Wheaton girls are.  That being said, the bar we met them at was a good night cap to a fairly entertaining weekend in the city.

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2 weeks ago, I took Friday off of work because I anticipated going to Austin's bachelor party in Detroit on Thursday.  Those plans fell through and I found myself still in Wheaton, at Muldoon's, on Thursday night, watching the Bulls try to win game 5 of their series against the Heat.  As it was, about 8 of us had shown up only to witness the Bulls blow a 15-ish point lead in the 4th quarter and end their season abruptly.  Most of my friends left after that, the way I saw it was that I could either go home and mope as well, wasting a perfectly good Thursday night, or I could stick around and wash some of the pain away.  I decided to stay and a few other friends stuck around with me too.  We started to have a good time again and I got to catch up with a few high school friends that I had not seen in awhile.  That's when Lauren approached me...

Now, a few months ago, perhaps as late as December 2010, I began to rekindle my friendship with my buddy Sean.  I'm sure I wrote about this night once, but Sean introduced me to his friend, Crazy Lauren.  The moniker did not seem to fit the bill as she seemed very polite and actually even had us over for some drinks at her house.  I learned things about her like how she works at Genghis Grill, a restaurant like Mongolian BBQ, and she also has an internship somewhere, somewhere that I do not care enough about to remember.  I hadn't seen Lauren until the night before this Bulls game, we chatted a bit and she actually seemed pretty cool.

Now, back to Thursday night.  Lauren approached me, probably using some line about how terrible it was that the bulls lost.  I got into this conversation with her and my friend Kel (Kel is a boy).  Lauren went on this 10-15 minute tangent about how Genghis Grill was so much better than Mongolian ("They us new cooking sticks every time", "The food is fresher", "Drink specials are better", etc.).  During this conversation I began to think to myself, wow she crazy about Genghis grill, PERHAPS Crazy is a good prefix for her.  Well, maybe not crazy, but a little nutty at least.  Her and I continued to chat and things became very flirtatious.  Now keep in mind, I have been in a bit of a drought, with anything significant dating back to Stev's and my roadtrip (Was Clinton still president then?).  Little Bit Nutty Lauren asked me as last call was being announced, "Do you need a ride back?"  because she saw the state I was in and knew I probably had not driven myself.  I replied, "Well, I rode my bike..." (As in *bringg bringg* not *vroom vroom*).  To which she quickly and adamantly said, "Well you can just throw it in the back of my car!". OK.  Now I knew that something was bound to happen that night.  We left Muldoon's as they were putting the chairs up on the table and she was parked in front of Genghis Grill.  After we both got settled into the car I almost immediately went in for the move.  We had been so touchy feely at Muldoon's, there was no way this wasn't going to happen, right? WRONG.  She deflected my approach and exclaimed, "Wait! We're not even Facebook friends yet!"  Crazy Lauren it is.  I shrugged back into my passenger seat and took pause.  Huh? Facebook friends? Should I have whipped out my phone then and added her?  I mean, this is 2011, if you're not FB friends, then you'll never be friends.  Obama was never friends with Bin Laden right? She then began to explain that this was only our 3rd time meeting and although she thought I was a cute and nice guy, she wanted to get to know me a little more.  Ok, I want none of that.  I was shocked and having troubles formulating the right thoughts and responses, prompting her to ask me the question, "Where would you take me on a date?"  Maybe I wasn't thinking clearly, or maybe I was thinking completely clearly but I had to respond, "Well...I would, uh, take you to Genghis Grill..."  So there went any chance for me.  "Really?! You would take me to the place I work at? I'm serious, where would we go?".  I answered with some BS about Glen Ellyn and a nice dinner, blah blah blah.  She told me that we could discuss as she drove me to my bike.  We sat in the Shane's parking lot, near my bike and had some sort of mental standoff.  Basically, it seemed that she would not be willing to put out unless I dated her. Oh I see now, so Crazy Lauren is a Wheaton girl!  Well, I wasn't going to budge, so I got ready to step out of the car.  As I was doing so, I realized I had left my jacket, which had my bike lock key, at Muldoon's.  I knew I didn't have much time and would need to hustle back over there because they had started closing down when we left.  So what Crazy Lauren saw was me getting out of the car and literally sprinting as fast as I could away from her.  Right past my bike, seemingly into the Wheaton night.  Probably not a good look on me.  So I did get my jacket before they locked up and the night ended with me riding home slowly, trying to digest the comments made.  She almost took advantage of me, I could have woken up and found myself "in a relationship".  She gave me her last name, but I forgot it so we still aren't Facebook friends.  Who knows, I haven't really seen her since, so it could make for an interesting encounter next time.

I got home, cleaned up and fell asleep.  I didn't expect to kick the weekend of like that, I had to store up for Austin's Wedding after all...

Here's to new cooking sticks...every time,

Chin