Undisclosed - Zach Bo1inger
The OzzFest story
I'm at Ozzfest in Indianapolis with my friend Chris. There are attractive women everywhere. One particular one catches my eye, and I really wanted to go talk to her. "I wish I knew what to say to women," I said to Chris.
"You know saying the right thing is nowhere near as important as just saying something. You guarantee that you lose if you don't say anything at all."
"Yeah, I know," I said, "I'm going to go get a drink. You want anything?" I asked. He declined.
On my way to the food section, I decided to get a couple beers and offer one of them to the girl I liked. They were $7 each, but I was on a mission. Got back to the stands with the two beers. I tapped the girl on the shoulder, and asked "How old are you"
"Um, 21" she replied. I wasn't totally convinced, but I didn't care.
"You want a beer?" I offered.
"Are you serious?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm serious!" I shot back. I tried to convey that I took offense to being doubted.
"Um, give it to her," she said and pointed to her friend.
"No, it's for you," I said, and then I put on a big confused face, trying to act like I had never been rejected before and I couldn't understand what was happening.
And I walked away. Chris nodded and smiled. He was impressed that I had the nerve to try it. I looked down at $14 worth of beer and drank them both myself. That was while the second to the last band was playing. I decided I would go play the sympothy card. I waited for Korn to finish their set, and then went and found the girl.
"I suck at flirting. Can you tell me what I did wrong before?" I blurted out. She looked like she felt bad.
"No. no. It wasn't you," she said, "It's just that I didn't see the drink get poured. For all I knew you might have put something in it." She had street smarts. I like that. I could definitely see that. This is how I looked that day. I respect any girl that looked at that guy and said "He might be the kind of guy who drops ruffies in a girl's drink."
That's my "root me, baby" shirt I got at a hacker convention.
"That's true, I guess a girl can't be too careful," I agreed. "Wait a minute. Why did you offer the drink to your friend?"
"Okay," she admitted, "I was also afraid you were an undercover cop."
"You're not 21?" I'm 28. I was okay with 21. All I could do was stand there and hope she wasn't 16.
"No, I'm 20," she answered. Then her friend broke in.
"Don't even!" the friend shouts.
"Okay, I'll be 20 in 10 days." Now she's 19. That crosses the decade borderline. I didn't know if I could go back to Chris and tell him I was hitting on a teenager. On the other hand, my long term plan is to marry somebody who is 25 when I'm 35. Would a 9 year age difference be so terrible this early? She was very attractive and intriguing, so I kept with it.
"You want to go get a drink, now? You can watch them pour it." I know, at this point I'm committing one of the most heinous crimes - contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Send hate-mail to somebody who cares.
"We've got such a great spot. I don't want to lose it," she lamented.
I told her my Sasquatch friend could watch over things while we were gone and she had lots of friends there. I should explain that Chris is 6 feet 5 inches tall, and he is one hairy bastard.
Now she looked irritated. "I've met your 'Sasquatch friend' and I couldn't see a thing when I was standing behind him. That 500 pound fat guy wouldn't move for anything."
"I think you're thinking of a different Sasquatch," I said. Chris weighs about 240 and nobody would describe him as fat. I pointed out Chris, and she agreed that wasn't the one who irritated her earlier.
"I'll call him over and have him stand guard of the spot," I said.
"I don't want to go alone," she interjected. I invited her friend to go with us.
"What if we don't get back in time for Ozzy? I gotta see Ozzy!" That was three excuses. When I worked in sales, they told us to keep suggesting accessories with computers until the customer said "no" three times.
"I understand." I said, and started to walk away.
"No, that's not what I meant," she said, "Don't go away." I was so relieved.
"You want me to go get you something and bring it back?" I offered.
"Are you serious?" she asked. I think that's her catch phrase.
"Yeah, what do you want?" I asked.
"I think I trust you," she said, "Do they have Mike's Lemonade?" I felt a little bit better about the whole contributing to the delinquency thing once I found out she already had a poison of choice.
"If they don't, what would be your second choice?" I asked.
"Whatever, I'll take a beer." I ended up getting her a Lynchburg Lemonade and another beer for myself. When I got back, I what they had and offered her a choice of beer or Jack Daniels Lynchburg. I told her I would drink whatever she didn't choose. She took the lemonade, but she wanted me to take a sip first to make sure there was nothing in it. Then she asked me again if I was a cop. I told her if I was, I wouldn't be able to drink while I was on the job. That was good enough for her.
We danced to Ozzy for about an hour. Not much talking because the music was loud, and besides, you come to see Ozzy, you watch Ozzy. There's time for conversation after the music.
I noticed all her friends were sitting on the ground behind us. "Your friends aren't having as much fun as you are," I pointed out. I figured I would score some points for caring about her friends.
"We've been here all day. They're probably tired." She answered.
I inadvertantly helped out her friends. They were waiting for her to notice they were bored so they could go home. Next thing I knew, everybody was leaving. She leaned over and talked to one of the friends while I watched helplessly. She turned back to me and said "I gotta go." She said it with regret.
"Can I give you my phone number?" I asked.
"I live in Ohio." she lamented. I told her it was nice meeting her as her friends physically dragged her away.
I stood there dumbfounded. I thought things were going pretty well. I decided I didn't care if she lived in Ohio, I would still like to get to know her better, even if just with E-mail. I ran after her, but I had already given them a 45 second head start. With the crowd and all the possible exits, that was way to much time. I ran to the main exit and looked for her for about 5 minutes. Eventually I gave up and went back to find Chris.
Maybe she'll search the internet for "Ozzfest Indianapolis Ohio Mike's Hard Lemonade" and find this site. Maybe.