Sigh.
I should have known something would happen today.
It’s muggy and should have been raining, but guilt drove me out for a bike ride early this morning (while it was still cool and when it looked like I had forty-five minutes or so between rain storms).
I hadn’t been out but once in the last two months, so I should have known that something would be waiting for me.
And here I’m going to swear that I will never repeat an event in writing to everyone if it happens to me more than once. This is, admittedly, getting ridiculous. I wouldn’t believe that all this crap happens to me, if I were you, but I swear I am a weird magnet when I’m on my bike. On foot, not so much. But, because this stuff keeps happening, and I keep “sharing” with you guys all the time with basically the same story frame, I figured I should at least swear that I won’t repeat myself with the major story parts. At least that way you will know that something new and horrible has happened to me. Rest assured, though, this is, I think, the most uncomfortable story yet. So please read on.
I’ll skip the setting set-up, since you all know where I was and what I was doing by now.
At a little before 8:40 (only about 10 minutes into my ride), I decided I better have a bit of a stretch and use the public facilities there since my morning glass of water was obviously working its way through. I’ve always been told that stretching is vital when exercising, but I’ve never been much for it. Not surprisingly, I’m about as limber as a six-hour-dead soccer coach. Every once in awhile, though, my muscles demand that I give them a little attention, and this was one of those times. And I figured I should probably make the pit stop while I was there so I wouldn’t have to in another fifteen minutes (insert tragically small bladder jokes here, “friends”). The bathrooms at the park are actually not that bad. The floors are always wet for some probably-not-disgusting-but-I’ll-assume-it-is-anyway reason, but they have actual running water, which is more than I would have expected. Why I knew it was a little before 8:40 is important and I’ll get to it in a bit.
Anyway, I pulled my bike onto the sidewalk next to a picnic table close to the bigger of the two bathrooms. “Close” is a relative concept. I was still a good 20 yards or so away from the bathroom, but I needed the table to stretch my legs on. While my leg was propped up and I was doing awkward and poorly conceived looking but pleasant feeling leans from side to side and front and back, I took a moment to notice all of the people in the park. There were several regulars—oldies with their dogs and canes and chit chat—and a few new faces. One guy, I noticed, was sort of hovering around the bathroom area, looking distracted. He was pacing around the sidewalks, crossing the street and standing, inspecting the parking lot, and generally looking like he was waiting for someone. I continued with my stretching for a minute or so, and walked around, pushing on trees and doing more leaning from side to side to try and keep my legs from freezing up.
After finishing with that, I started walking, in a meandering, still trying to stretch my calves kind of way, to the bathroom. To an observant person, I might too have looked like I was distracted and trying to look "normal" or “casual.” I walked into the bathroom, stepped into the stall and did my business. I wrapped that up, figuratively speaking, and turned around to see the waiting guy standing at the door of the stall, looking at me. He looked . . . expectant. I’m not sure I can describe the look on my face. I’ve never been much for “emoting,” so probably I just looked mildly confused and maybe a little annoyed (I’m told I often look annoyed, I can’t imagine why).
“You here for the special?” he asked, perhaps trying to break the ice, as it were, with an awkward quip.
“Huh?” I responded. And he pointed to some writing on the wall.
“8:40—5/22,” it said.
“Oh,” I replied.
“Well, drop ‘em,” he suggested, looking down at my crotch.
At this point, of course, I became flustered. I am no slouch at coming up with witty retorts and should-have-saids, two hours after the fact, but I am horrible on the spot. I pretty much freeze up and my mouth and my brain refuse to cooperate properly—partly because my brain actually locks up and refuses to work while my mouth starts working independently. I suspect I might not be good in a crisis. At least not if conversation is involved.
“Oh,” I said again.
As I saw it, I had two choices. One, I could drop my pants and see where this course of action took me. Two, I could come up with some excuse about herpes and move on. Well, probably there were more choices, but these were the only two that were presenting themselves to me at the time.
The first option, while probably full of merit, didn’t seem like much of an option. Even if I swung that way, which I'm pretty sure I don't, this guy would not have been my type. I’m no trophy, but I am reasonably sure that I could do better than a 45-50 year old, overweight, bald, repressed-accountant-looking guy. Possibly not MUCH better, but SOME better. I could probably take one of those negative attributes and make it the positive version, at least. Get the fit, bald, accountant-looking or the overweight, bald, archaeologist-looking (hmm, I’m not sure what career-looking would be attractive on a guy, actually, I guess I lean towards the Indiana Jones archetype in my generalizations of male attraction).
“Well?” he encouraged.
“Oh,” I said. “No. I have . . .” I continued, looking down and making “don’t go there” hand gestures in front of my crotch. “. . . Problems,” I finished. And I left it at that, figuring, sometimes, less is more.
He gave me a doubtful look but didn’t move. It took me the last hour or so of thinking about it to figure out why he didn’t just get out of my way and let me leave, but I think I’ve got it. On the one hand, I hadn’t just said there was some misunderstanding, as there obviously was and I obviously should have explained to him. Which, to him, meant that I had known about the meeting time written on the wall, but just wasn’t interested in him, so I was making excuses to leave—specifically, to leave him.
Upon closer reflection, this was quite mean of me. Here’s this strange man offering possibly stranger men the love that dare not speak its name in a public restroom because he is probably not having much luck dating otherwise, and I basically shot him down with an excuse that is the back alley equivalent of “I need to wash my hair.” I was the type of guy who would show up for a lascivious, morning-time fling in a public restroom, but at the same time I was a fickle bitch who was too good for the person who was making the date. I suppose that’s some bad karma for me there.
Needless to say, I cut my bike ride short. I don’t think I could have faced him if I’d made another trip around. And I suppose that was for the best, because that would have added insult to injury. I have gone ahead and given both Nature and Pat ½ point in my ongoing struggle because, frankly, I don’t know who won out there. I figure Nature drove us together, in some weird sort of way (this is the second time I’ve been propositioned by a man in an unusual place; thankfully, Libby and I think Ben were there the first time at the McDonalds in Pratt—and I should probably mention that this is more times than I’ve been propositioned by strange women in public places by, I believe, two), so Nature gets a ½ point. And I resisted an obvious if somewhat disturbing temptation, so Pat gets ½ point too. There were no clear winners here, so that seems fair.
And, now, I think I might go finish up my bike ride. And I’m going to be using the bathroom before I leave.
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