I’ve had to wait a few days towrite this post. It’s one of those posts that you just can’t write until you’ve hada chance to calm down. I keep telling myself (and others) that I’m a pretty laidback,calm person, but lately I’ve been on the brink of rumbling over silly things. Forexample, the other day I found myself in a heated argument with the PNC bank guy.John B was witness to a conversation that went something like: PNC Bank Guy: “Whydon’t you join PNC bank?” Me: “PNC sucks! Why am I even wasting my time talking toyou? I don’t have time for this shit.” The second near explosion came last Fridaynight at happy hour. There was this guy Carl sitting at the bar and our party wasseated at a table. For some reason he felt the need to interject from like 10 yardsaway on what I should get my dad for Father’s day. Thanks Carl, but I didn’t ask foryour opinion. The guy must have had super sensitive hearing letalone zero manners.But that’s ok, so far Carl was just a minor annoyance, nothing more. Meanwhile I’mtrying to keep an eye on where Balloon Girl went to. (see photo above) Earlier inthe night I fell victim to the resident “poor college student moonlighting as a balloonanimal artist” act. The turn on was surprisingly her vocabulary. With words like “summarization”and “disparaging,” how could a guy not become enamored? That conversation went somethinglike: Balloon Girl: “When I get home at night I smell like latex.” Me:”What does yourboyfriend think of that?” Her: “I don’t have a boyfriend” Me: ear-to-ear grin. Everyoneelse: thinking I was way obvious. Me: thinking they’re never going to believe me whenI tell them I was purposely being obvious. Anyway, while all this was happening, therest of the table was also pretty much tripping over each other to interject the factthat I was interested. Thanks guys, but I don’t need another Carl. So both these situationsare pretty high stress for me. (Hi I’m Jeff, remember me? the guy who has problemsfor people that don’t have any problems?) And then the inevitable happened. Afterpassing Balloon Girl a bunch of times, I finally lured her back to the bar area. Atthe same time F’in Carl wanted to become even more involved in my life. With the forceof nuclear fission, both Balloon Girl and F’in Carl entered my immediate attention.One good stress, one bad stress, both stress nonetheless. F’in Carl felt the needto give Balloon Girl his business card even before I had a chance to. Now I don’tunderstand Carl … someone please tell me what a 45 year old man is doing tryingto pick up a twenty something year old girl? What is that man doing talking to herin the first place? So finally she weasels away from F’in Carl to respond to my prettyobvious beckoning. I’m trying my best to form coherent sentences, but I got Shawnaon my left laughin up a storm at the recent loss of all my conversational facilities.Plus, It’s hard enough converting thoughts into sentences without the incessant starefrom F’in Carl. I’d try to say something funny, she’d kinda give me this blank stare,and in the corner of my eye I see Carl laughing. Man, I wanted to kick in his teeth.We’d see how much smiling Carl’d be doing then. So to make a long story short, I gotthe biggest c-block from a total stranger. Carl, I hope you’re happy. The only upsideto the night was that she did offer me her number. Only she didn’t have any cardsleft. Convenience or not?