Can I Have Your Number?

Apparently, life imitates art. Or, at least, my life imitates this art.

It's well documented that I ain't all that and a bag of chips, sister girl. Yes, I've been propositioned as a prostitute, and sometimes, when I go out wearing nothing but a leotard and some coke cans in my hair, I get some attention. But that's only because I'm dressed like a slag and boys like girls who are easy. I am categorically NOT easy (in so much as if you can't successfully complete the Guardian's crossword in under 30 minutes then I won't get down on my knees for you) (Word) and am not only writing this in my pajamas but have also failed to brush my teeth yet, either. It's nearly time for bed again, anyways.



So I might not be all that and a bag of chips, but you'd better believe that on the way home from Sainsbury's, carrying all that and a bag of loo paper and olive oil, some guy comes over all 8-Mile on my burly, dimpled ass, when I'm just a nice, British, middle-class, white girl who happened to be wearing a lot of leather.



It was like being back in Detroit or something. This guy was BANANAS.



(Actually, do you know what? I can't go any further without being really truthful with you Internet. I didn't just buy the loo paper and olive oil. In fact, I should have brought loo paper and olive last night, when I was pissed as a fart on an accidental consumption of Chocolate Orange cocktails and dragged my drinking partners around Tesco, even though we all needed to make a pee-pee and were probably just going to spend cash on satiating our munchies with Creme Eggs anyway. 



No, I had purchased more than the bare necessities. I also had Sainsbury's brand Angel Cakes in my bag, which I can wholeheartedly and proudly declare that yup. I had every intention of eating all six slices of heaven in one big fat watch-my-weight-get-higher-and-higher-because-I'm-not-even-running-at-the-moment splurge. Which I would love to tell you would have been a one-off indulgence but my increasing waistline and I can't tell fibs. What with our mouths being too full up with cake to spew out anything else, anyway.)



(As a further sidenote, the cocktails were on the drinks list as Choc a l'orange, thus perfectly fuelling my pretentious nature when I'm supping from a martini glass by having me flinging around my arms and saying it in a altogether unconvincing style français. The girl at the bar pretending to talk another language? That was me.)





So I clocked this guy as I was walking towards him. Bandanna on, swinging his arms like he was trying to get his knuckles to kiss to the road, limping like he had a busted knee-cap or something. I clocked him and looked down again, smiling to the pavement that somebody would actually go to the effort of conducting themselves in public like that. Like dude seriously. Pull up your trousers.



I heard a, "Hey! Heeeeey, hey!" and looked up to see him dragging his blindingly white trainers toward me. "Hey," he said again.



It was one of those weird moments where you don't really realise that somebody is talking to you until they are literally in your face saying words that you don't understand. As this "homie" stood in front of me, moving his body from the left to the right like he was auditioning for Save the Last Dance I had to really concentrate on his mouth to hear what he was saying.



It was something along the lines of, "Are you from around here?" but interspersed with a lot of "Ummmms," and "Errrrrs" which in the first instance made me feel like I should make no sudden movements and possibly avoid direct eye-contact in case. Well. You know. In case he was a loon.



"I don't live here but I know the area," I lied, as I felt in my pocket for my house keys. I once read in a Patricia Cornwall novel that in cases like this jamming two keys into the eyes of your attacker is the best defense.



"Ahhhh, is that right?" he said, only I have written that sentence down in ACTUAL ENGLISH. What he said was something more like, "Aye, iz dat reet innit?"



I was laughably middle-class about his accent, responding with a manufactured accent that I haven't heard since I was trying to seduce a barman when I was actually in Detroit as I enquired, "Do you need directions?"



"Pfffft," he replied in mangled tenses, "I has just moved here and is looking for some pretty gals and dat, innit?"



In my head I thought, "And you're talking at me why? Exactly?"



"Good luck with that," I replied, "But I've got to go. My boyfriend is waiting for me." Obviously that had me cracking up on the inside, what with the stash of cake I was hiding to go and consume in front of a chick flick and a box of tissues. All I needed was a cat under my arm and he would have known to stay well clear of me, oh chronically single one.



"Pfffffft, iz dat reet?" He said to me. "Well I tell ya what, next time I see ya, I'm gonna go give you me number, innit?" he told me, to which I laughed. In his face. And then walked away. Because if you were gonna give me your number, you would just do it. You don't make an appointment to give out your digits. Damn fool. Tell me I'm wrong.



And it's not that I wasn't flattered by the attention- because even though the insult of this uneducated and inarticulate oaf thinking that we might actually be playing ball in the same league stung my ego like a bee up a shirt sleeve- I was. I know it takes guts to approach a girl cold; to say, "Hey, I like the look of you. How about taking your chances?" I get that that's a big deal. I do.



I just want to know why I don't ever get the guys who might actually open with the words, "Hey- you look like a girl with a lot on her mind and the intelligence to seduce me with intellectual intercourse. I bet you laugh like an Irish sailor after six Guinness and bend like a pretzel in bed, too."



THEN I would take my chances. If that ever happened. You know?



The moral of this story? I'm going to die alone, surrounded by cats and angel cake, or else I'm just gonna have to take my chances with a homie next time.



These are my options. Brilliant.