A Blessing in Disguise: You Sneaky, Sneaky Blessing

So there I was, standing in the lunch line, and a kid walks up to me and asks for a dollar. Now, this kid is black, I might add. I said, "No way, man. I don't do any favors for your kind." He reminds me--as dozens of other kids had done that week when wanting a dollar, potato chip, or to borrow my shoes--that it is Black History Month. I, admittedly, felt like I automatically owed a debt to him and his race simply because I was white. You just can't beat the race card. So I decided to give him the dollar. Our conversation went something like this,

Me: "No way you're going to pay me back."

Him: "I seriously will. I swear to God."

Me: "If I do, hypothetically, give you the dollar, then I would need you to pay it back by tomorrow morning. No exceptions."

Him: "Yeah, man."

Me: "And you're going to use it responsibly, like to buy a Pop-Tart, right? Not on drugs or alcohol or women?"

Him: "Nah, man."

Me: "Fine."

I think I made him swear roughly three trillion times that he would pay me back. Finally I hand him the dollar and proceed to watch him through my binoculars as he waltzes off the snack bar to buy a box of jelly beans or a Wild Cherry slushie or whatever his people like to eat.

So the next day I track him down to get my money. I find him, tap him on the shoulder, and ask him for my money back. He gives me a blank stare. I gently remind him that I loaned him a dollar and he said he would pay me back the next morning. He says he has no idea what I'm talking about. At this point I was getting a little frustrated. You know our conversation which I just posted above? Yeah, I recited our entire conversation to him. He just shakes his head and says he has no idea what I'm talking about. Then I pounce on top of him and start beating him until he's out cold.

Once he came to, I gave him a glass of warm milk and asked him one last time in my most agreeable, gentle voice whether he wanted to do this the easy way or the hard way. He finally caved and said that if I met him in our science teacher's classroom after school, he would give me the money. "The money" referring to a single dollar bill. Or four quarters. Or ten dimes. Which is pretty sad.

After school, I then went to the teacher's classroom. She, not surprisingly, is zoned out staring at her computer--undoubtedly on Facebook or playing internet chess. The kid is there. He sees me, shivers a little and touches a hand involuntarily to his bruised face, and fishes through his wallet for the money. He looks up at me with his stupid look, like the look goats give you when you catch them eating a candy wrapper, and says, "Do you have change for a $50?"

Yeah, Black History Month was over. I beat him up again and this time I think I might have killed him. (I felt like destroying something beautiful.)

So here's the part where I reveal this situation as a blessing in disguise. I'm walking away feeling bitter because I've been deprived of my dollar, which I could use to buy anything from bubble gum to a box of matches, when the girl walks right up behind me.

The girl. The one with such blue eyes? The one with a face carved from a petrified moonbeam with a dentist's silver sword? My dream girl? It's after school so the halls are deserted. It's just me and her.

And there couldn't have been a more perfect time. I'm wearing my extra-self-confidence underwear, which is pretty much like normal underwear, except it's cooler. I have my athletic bag with me so she can see I do a sport, but she doesn't know it's track so it could be baseball or lacrosse. I felt spontaneous this morning and washed my hair with this silky pineapple conditioner, and so my hair is fluffy and smells delicious.

Our conversation was brief. Two to three minutes at the most. But it was a conversation, and that's what counted. A conversation with the most beautiful girl in the world. With the only Jewish blonde goddess I can think of off the top of my head. (Ooh, except Athena. Yeah, definitely Jewish.)

I hardly remember what we talked about. Something about me being a triplet. I didn't say a single clever thing, and in fact I don't think I said a thing at all. Now that I recall, I'm pretty sure I just drooled a little bit and then pet her hair while she was turned away. I might have murmured, "You is pretty. Me wants you" once or twice, but that might have been it.

But that was fine for me. Definitely the highlight of my week. It almost compensated for the fact that we were running hills at track practice today. It was on a busy street too, so we had to dart over to the side of the road every nine seconds. There was this one Hispanic man that drove by in a car with his mother in the passenger's seat. He was honking like crazy and shouting, "Get out of the way, bitch-asses!!!"

I nearly fainted by the end of the workout, it was so exhausting.

Coach: "You feeling okay, Kennedy?"

Me: "Yeah, Coach."

Coach: "Because you looked a little light-headed coming up off that hill."

Me: "Nah, I'm just really stoned."

The results of my newest poll have revealed that I better get my act together and be more consistent with responding to your comments. Which I will do. None of you will be neglected. All are exalted in Christopher Land.

God, I'm tired. Have I been sounding loopy during this post? Because I'm feeling loopy. I have to go finish my term paper.

Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you.

Cheers,
That Blond Guy