Stupid Cupid

Last night, tired from having to get up early and from spending the day being fairly bored in the Excel class, I was considering going to bed a bit earlier than usual.
At around midnight I opted to go through one last channel surf before calling it quits and stumbled across “Bade: Trinity.”
I wasn’t going to watch it, figuring that I could either set the DVR to record it, or catch it during some other airing.
Not that I had any particular interest in watching it; I just figured I might as well do so at some point, given that I’d seen the other two.
Still, as I sat there feeling too tired to get up and go to bed, I found myself resolving to see how one particular scene was going to play out, and before I knew it I was halfway through the movie, and though I wasn’t actually enjoying it, having invested that much time in I figured I might as well see it through to the end.
Once it was (mercifully) over, I made my way to bed and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I woke up a bit after 8 and considered getting up, even though I’d only gotten about six hours of sleep, but decided against it. However, before I could manage to drift back to sleep the garbage truck arrived and proceeded to spend fifteen minutes getting into position, which involved a lot of backing up (and therefore a lot of beeping), followed by about five minutes of picking the dumpster up, putting it back down, and shaking it like a kid shaking the Christmas presents he’s found hidden in his parents’ closet.
Albeit briefly, I actually was a garbageman at one point in my life, so I know for a fact that it really isn’t necessary to devote that much time – and noise – to simply emptying a dumpster. These people are clearly just fucking with all of the people of the world who don’t have to be up early in the morning.
In any case, I decided to get up and get in my walk a little earlier than usual. However, I noticed that it looked pretty wet outside, with the threat of becoming even wetter looming in the heavy, gray clouds, and the forecast supported my suspicion, so I decided that I would take opportunity to work on my novel, as I only managed to write a couple hundred words yesterday.
That idea was soon thrown out the window, and I decided that I was still tired and deserved to be able to just waste a day after all the writing I did on Monday and taking the class yesterday, so I went back to bed.
Several weird dreams – including one in which I had broken my PDA – and a couple of hours later I woke up to discover that it had turned into the kind of day that was pretty much the exact opposite of what the forecast had called for and what the morning had promised, so, to avoid having to sit down and write, I decided to take advantage of the meteorological misprognostication and went for a walk.
Shortly after I got home, again, in an effort to avoid writing, I decided to walk over to Safeway to pick up some kind of dinner.
While I was in line I noticed that a guy ahead of me was buying flowers, two bottles of champagne…and a can of Reddi-wip.
Gee, I wonder what kind of plans he had for evening...
At the very least, I hope there was actually someone waiting for him at home and that he wasn’t buying these things for his own amusement.
The whole thing reminded me of a time when Eric and his then-wife Sally were attempting one of several reconciliations, and Sally had moved into the house I was sharing with Eric and another person. When they would get home from work, the two of them (Eric and Sally) would disappear into their bedroom for several hours. One day, Sally had brought home strawberries and, eventually, mashed them up for strawberry shortcake, which would be topped by the Reddi-wip she’d also brought home.
She later complained about how no one seemed to be using the mashed strawberries or the Reddi-wip, to which I responded that I’d had a piece of strawberry shortcake and had, in fact, used the Reddi-wip to top it.
At that point, Eric and Sally shared a nervous, conspiratorial glance, and Eric asked, cautiously, “Which can of Reddi-wip did you use?”
It was at that point that I realized that the strawberries and Reddi-wip had made a detour to the bedroom before finding their way into the refrigerator.
It was probably also at that point that I decided that once I was on my own again I would never, ever live with roommates.
In any case, my skillful avoidance of writing today has put me about 5,000+ words behind where I should be at this point.
Here’s hoping I’m a little more prolific tomorrow.
I’m still not certain if, like last year’s, this novel is going to be a simple exercise, something I’ve written just for the sake of participating. In conceiving of it, I had wanted to make it into something suitable for seeking publication, or at least worth posting to the Web in a much more polished form than last year’s end product.
Now I’m not so sure I even want to write it at all, so I think it’s going to be a throwaway exercise; assuming I even finish it.
Monday’s experience with “Stone Face” led me to become even more fully convinced that, in addition to having the ability to make my car’s “Check Engine” light come on (which seems to have faded), and to predict which syndicated episode of “The Simpsons” will be on (it usually manifests in the form of me thinking of a line from a particular episode at some point in the day, and then discovering that the episode that the line was from is on later that day), I have the ability to get women married.
I’m sort of an unintentional Cupid: if I’m even slightly attracted to a woman, to the point that I might consider asking her out, it’s pretty much guaranteed that within two years she will be married and/or have a kid.
To date, my unintenional matchmaking has yielded some pretty impressive results: so far as I know, every woman I’ve had more than a passing interest in over the past ten years has gotten married.
This power of mine is so strong, in fact, that I’ve even managed to make a woman who swore she would never get married settle into a life of domestic bliss as a missus and a mom.
Hell, I even managed to help my wife land herself a new husband and two kids.
If I didn’t know that it would crap out on me if I tried it, I’d consider trying to sell my services.
I could be “Jon: The Unwitting, Unwilling, and Unintentional Matchmaker,” or better yet, “Jon: The Stupid Cupid.”
I can just see the ad campaign.
“Ladies, is your biological clock ticking? Are you looking for Mr. Right or even just trying to get a ring on your finger from Mr. Right Now? Well, look no further than Jon!
“But wait, don’t run! We aren’t suggesting that you get involved with Jon. Heaven forbid! After all, we know that no one’s situation is that desperate.
“No, all you have to do is catch Jon’s eye and let his patented ‘Stupid Cupid’ system take care of the rest.
“There are only three simple steps:
1. Talk to Jon, demonstrating that you have at least half a brain.
2. Flirt with him a little (It doesn’t take much! Just touch your hair a little and flash him a smile: he’s just that desperate!)
3. Watch him fall hard and fast for you and wait for the universe to fuck him over once again!
“It’s just that easy! Once you have his interest, men will come crawling out of the woodwork! Suddenly your boyfriend will want to take things to the next level! Your pee test will come back positive! And the guys you weren’t willing to settle for before will seem so much more attractive now that you’ve found out what it’s like to have Jon interested in you!
“Satisfaction guaranteed. Void where prohibited by law.”
I could even do an infomercial with testimonials from satisfied customers.
“I had totally given up hope of ever meeting the person I wanted to spend my life with. Then I met Jon and everything changed. Suddenly, once I saw him starting to build up the courage to ask me out, all of the frogs around me began looking like princes in comparison! Jon’s ‘Stupid Cupid’ system changed my life! I’m so glad that I considered going out with Jon…and then decided not to!”
Of course, if I did try to market this ability it would fade as rapidly as my “Check Engine” power (which is probably going to return now).
Anyway, I guess I’ve wasted enough time that could have been spent working on my novel...