Call Me Captain Backfire

Again, the long cool shadow of tragedy has fallen upon my life. Another social casualty. This one is pretty bad folks. Brace yourself.

Yesterday, in the midst of an especially hot midday sun, I made a most unfortunate mistake: I tried to have a conversation with Reid Fischer. If you don’t know Reid,I'll preface this by saying he’s basically the greatest guy ever. That being said, and myself exonerated from any potential collateral friendship damage, I have to say that I had grown discontent with our seemingly endless give and take of “What’s up man?”, “Hey man”, and if I was feeling a bit wild, “Hey, what’s up man!?”. Though some relationships thrive on such redundant social interactions, I thought that it was finally time to transcend the copy of a copy of a copy pleasantry exchanges.

What a mistake.

Reid works at the carwash with me, and I had it all planned out. Well, part of it anyway. The scene was just right; a slow day, no one else around, and I had warmed him up with a solid “Hey man” that morning, followed by a still more solid handshake. The air was electric and the afternoon full of promise. He rounded the corner, unexpectedly, and a wave of courage washed over me and I blurted out, “Hey Reid! Hey man. Uhhhhh, I have a question for you!”

Now it should be fully clarified here that I absolutely did NOT HAVE A QUESTION FOR HIM.

He walks over and begins to stare at me. I stare right back and tilt my head, as though deep in thought. About five seconds of silence pass. He says, “Yeah man. What?”

So I start running through a mental list of possible things to ask him and am drawing a perpetual blank. My heart soars when I come up with the idea of asking him to tell Sean Raybuck, his roommate, I said, "Hey man." But then I realize that would be weird, though I’m pretty sure that’s a line I crossed after about the first three seconds of psuedo-thoughtful silence.

“Oh never mind. It’s no big deal,” I say, abandoning all hope for the conversation that never even really started.

But he finds my answer absolutely unacceptable. You see, now he knows something is going on, and when someone says “Never mind” that only creates an obstinate desire in the person to find out what you wanted. So trying to get out of it was like a high jumper trying to jump a four foot bar, failing miserably, and then moronically raising it another two feet.

“Just tell me man. What’s the question?”

Again, “Oh never mind. No biggie.”

“No. What is it? Come on.”

At this point I’m completely frozen, a deer in the speeding headlights of idiotic social interactions. I panic, a million thoughts swirling inside of my head, close my eyes, open my mouth and hope something, anything comes out.

Again, what a mistake.

And verbatim, this is what I say: “What did Lacey get you for your birthday, man?”

WHAT DID LACEY GET YOU FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY!!?? WHAT IN THE WORLD?? WHY WOULD I EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER ASK THAT?? OHHHHH EMMMMMM GGGGGG!!!

So Reid looks at me like I have lobsters crawling out of my ears and replies, “Uh, nothing yet.” He quickly heads the opposite direction, getting away from me as quickly as humanly possible. I put my head in my hands and begin replaying the whole episode over and over. I have not yet stopped.

And to think, only three hours ago I calmly insisted to Sandy and Lindsey, as we swam at Five Mile Dam, that I am not awkward.

Once more: What a mistake.