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How Girl Talk Started

Gregg was walking home from school. He was distraught.

He had asked out a girl he liked and she had laughed at him. It wasn’t deliberate. She honestly thought he was joking. He couldn’t decide if that made it worse. If she had laughed in his face to be cruel, well, then he could be angry at her. But she laughed because she thought he was joking. The very idea of them going out was funny. Was he really that big of a loser in everyone’s eyes?

I need to find my mark, he thought to himself. I need something. She’s the best actress in the school. That a-hole friend of hers who laughed to be mean is the best soccer player. My best friend is crazy smart.

What am I? I’m nothing. I’ve got nothing. I need to have SOMETHING.

He realized he’d been standing at the sign for a while, the little white figure telling him it’s ok to walk. He self-consciously hurried across the street, not sure how long the ‘walk now’ sign had been there. Then he realized it may have just turned, so he was hurrying across the street for no reason, and felt more self-conscious than he already had.

He got to the sidewalk and hit the button to get the light to walk across the next street. Two cars were waiting at the red light. In the first car, a young, pretty girl was blasting a Madonna song, Material Girl.

In the second car an old man, apparently hard of hearing, was blaring talk radio.

Unexpectedly, Gregg’s move improved. The combination of Rush Limbaugh with Madonna was hysterical to him. ‘Girl Talk’ he thought to himself, imagining a combination of the two in some weird, ‘do we dance to this, or do we laugh’ mashup of the genres.

Suddenly, Gregg’s self-consciousness was gone. Thoughts of his rejection were dropped. His newfound passion consumed him. Run DMC with Johnny Cash? Why not, it could work. LL Cool J with a medley of a Dick Clark’s greatest hits mix? Sure.

Creativity, the panacea of the neurotic nerd.

Haven’t heard of Girl Talk? He does mash ups. Careful, there’s cursing.

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Short Short Stories

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One Last Thing Before You Go

She knew I wanted to break up with her. I’m convinced she knew. That’s why she started saying all these really weird things.

We’d be hanging out. Her doing some errands, me watching TV. Or maybe her watching TV, me reading. And one of us would make a snide comment to the other, pretty much unprovoked. It was really time for things to end. Then I would mentally take the plunge, the dreaded phrase, “listen, um ….” It would escape my lips with all the pomp and circumstance of a funeral procession. Then out of her, as though she hadn’t heard me at all, would come the weirdest thing.

“Have you thought about taking banjo lessons?”

It was like choking on something, having that “listen, um…” come back at me to be set aside for another time. No I hadn’t thought about banjo lessons, but now of course that was my top priority. Me? Banjo lessons? Well, I just think you’d be really good. Really? At banjo? Yeah of course! Can’t you see it? The relationship would live another day. And it turns out I suck at banjo.

“You look like you could’ve been a jeans jacket model in the late 80’s … have I told you that before?”

Honest. She said that to me once.

We were putting on clothes to go get ice cream from the grocery store and then she made a comment about my old shoes which led to me making a comment about all her new shoes which led her to comment on how I’ve gained weight and then I started in on a new insult when I realized the smarter thing to say would be, “listen … um …” Somehow she sensed it and instead I received,

“Turtle soup seems like the kind of thing you would’ve invented if you’d been alive all those years back. You know, back before it was invented. I just feel like you would’ve been the first one to see a turtle and thought, ‘yeah, let’s do this.'”

How could I break up with someone after they say such confusing, weird things? She was deliberately delaying our break up with little cups of crazy. I couldn’t leave – I had to know what was going to happen next. It’s like being sucked into a bad TV show or book, where you can’t stop now because geez you’ve put in all this effort and well occasionally something kinda interesting happens I guess.

“Listen, um …”

Wait what? She had just muttered that phrase to me and I couldn’t believe it. She’s doing this now? Really? On the one hand, yes, I don’t have to feel sorry for her now … but on the other hand THAT’S MY LINE. She did it, she pulled the gun and ended things. We were outside her apartment at the time. I asked if we could go up and grab my things. Up the flights of stairs we went in pained silence. As far as I knew she was preparing some incredibly weird thing to say before I could walk out of her door for the last time. I couldn’t handle that. Not again. This time it’ll be me.

“Do you want to keep my t-shirt that you sleep in?” I asked, sincerely. I don’t want that thing.
“Why would I want that?,” she asked surprisingly angry. Hey, didn’t YOU just break up with ME?
“I don’t know!,” whoops, now I’m angry. “God,” whoops again. Anger, you silly fiend.

We both look around, realizing at the same time we’d needlessly gotten angry with each other.

“So, is that everything?” She was asking about my clothes, but for a second I got dramatic and thought about how it really was everything in terms of us. Then I remembered my pledge to myself – that I had to be the one to leave on the weird note. She was opening her mouth, I hadn’t thought of anything, oh no, “one last thing before -”

“Sandwiches are a ploy by the government to …” oh no, something!, something!, “to um … you’ve gained weight.”

Then I turned and walked out.

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Short Short Stories

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Is She the One?

I saw her across the room and before I knew it I was walking toward her. I didn’t know what to say so I decided to start with a lie.

“Hi, your sandwich might be poisoned.”

She politely informed me she had no sandwich nearby. I politely informed her, looking down and to the right, that I may be too late. Then I looked at her and said in a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of way, my God, you can’t keep your eyes off me. She stared disappointedly.

I asked her if I was coming on a little strong and she said you lack the muscle tone for that. I thought, wow, this is the one, and then she almost ruined the mood by saying quit staring at my chest. I asked if she wanted to play truth or dare, she told me I looked a lot better when my mouth was closed. I took the hint and started doing some spontaneous interpretive dancing.

Oh, look out ladies, I seemed to be saying with my hips, I’m available and I may be too much to handle. She didn’t seem to be getting this so I asked for her number to text her what my interpretive dance was saying.

She said she didn’t give her number out to dancers, not after that incident with Jean. I said it’s pronounced jean, as in the clothing item, and her lack of worldliness is probably what ended things. She said a pair of flannel sweatpants would probably get further with her than I ever would. I told her that’s incorrect, they would definitely get further than I ever would.

I stormed off making thunder noises, and doing jazz hands while yelling the word lightning. I hurried back quietly and informed her that I had stormed off, get it, and was she sad about it. She said a gale force wind was coming in, then she wound up and got a little spittle on my face as she treated my face like a birthday cake with too many candles. It was my turn to be disgusted. She whispered, my name is Gale, get it.

This is going to be an interesting first date.

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Short Short Stories

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