I was with two of my girlfriends a few weeks ago on
vacation. We were walking around a beach town full of college students,
dreadlocked hippies and street performers.
We had just eaten dinner and were toting our take-out boxes
to the car when a pockmarked man in his mid 30s in baggy, worn out clothes came
up to us and quickly said in a cheery, upbeat voice, "Hey! I just got out
of prison! Would you like to come over here and listen to me play a song?"
Now, being a normal human being with common sense,
everything in me wanted to scream out, "No! I have mace!" But being
an awkward penguin and completely afraid of confrontation and saying no, I
mumbled, "Uhh sure," and ignored the angry glares of my friends who
were probably wondering if I had lost my mind as we followed the man around the
corner to where two other men were strumming guitars and singing.
We awkwardly stood there with our leftovers in hand while he
grabbed a guitar and proceeded to moan a tune with cleverly planned lyrics
about how he was standing in the street singing to three beautiful girls.
As he sang the line, "I sometimes play for tips, but I
love to play for free," I couldn't help but think to myself, "Wish
granted." I guess my sassy pants can sometimes beat out the penguin.
The song dragged on for probably five more minutes. We
awkwardly mumbled the obligatory "Wow, that was great, you have such
beautiful voice," spiel, which naturally encouraged him to go into another
equally awkward and long song of the same topic.
He finally finished and we gave him the same feedback. He
then fired questions at us, asking what kind of music we liked. My friends
mumbled out a few of the first genres they could think of, and then spotting
their window of opportunity, said, "Well, we should probably go."
This brought out Mr. Confrontation in the ex-convict. He
threw his arms up in a defensive motion and raised his pitch, "Hey now, I
wasn't trying to start anything, I was just asking what kind of music you guys
liked." Naturally, knowing what I knew about this man, this quick change
in tone made me fear that I was going to wet my pants, but my friends
apparently had a little more chutzpah.
"It's fine, but we really need to go."
He surrendered. "Oh that's ok, I understand. You girls
really shouldn't be walking around out here anyways. You never know what kind
of people are on the streets."
I so badly wanted to scream, "People like you!"
But apparently he hadn't given up yet. We slowly started to
back away, but he kept talking. "Now, if I was at a better place in my
life, I would definitely ask you girls out for a drink. But you're all
beautiful girls and look like you're definitely taken. I just wish I wasn't going
through such crap right now cause you girls are so beautiful and I wish we
could hang out."
We nodded our heads and smiled to appease him as we mumbled
goodbyes and nice to meet you's and continued backing away as he continued to
talk until, thankfully, he finally told us to have a nice day.
The strongly-worded scolding that I got from the girls on
the way back to the car made me wonder if I should have stuck it out with the
convict, even though I peered over my shoulder every few seconds to make sure
he wasn't running down the street towards us with a bloody butcher knife.
To all of my fellow awkward penguins out there, I wouldn't
recommend responding in situations like this the way I did. The convict was
right, you really don't know who is out there. I guess the silver lining is
that it provided an entertaining anecdote to tell at parties...you know, for
those moments when I work up the courage to actually talk to people instead of
pretending to text in order to avoid the awkwardness.
No comments:
Post a Comment