I Am Socially Retarded

Deep down, everyone likes to think they’re smoother than a Slip N’ Slide coated with 50 gallons of astroglide. Under the right circumstances, anyone can be cool. But it’s only those select, unflappable few who have the aura and presence of mind to be slick regardless of circumstance. In case there was any doubt, I am not a Chosen One. If you had a cool-o-scope, I would rank somewhere in the thousands of negative mega-fonzies, right between pocket protectors and speaking fluent Klingon.

The majority of my weekend was spent trying to impress a particularly fetching member of the opposite sex. It’s fortunate for me that she is, apparently, attracted to men who are socially retarded. Sort of like the social version of a chubby-chaser.

We were stepping out of the car behind a vehicle that had single-handedly redefined all definitions of “poor parallel parking.” Really, if they had been trying for “perpendicular parking” they would have been closer to acceptable. As it was, they neatly managed to park diagonally, be three feet from the curb, all while neatly subjecting their passengers directly into oncoming traffic by blocking an entire lane. It would have been better if they just hit the hazards and drove their car through the display windows of one of the stores.

As we stepped from our perfectly positioned car, we couldn’t help but converse about the piss-poor performance of the asshole who had abandoned his vehicle in front of us.

“Ohhhhh…” I said after an inspection of the car’s plates. “They’re from Wisconsin. We really can’t blame them.”

“Why?” demanded my shapely companion. “Don’t they have curbs there?”

“Of course not!” I beamed, proudly. Thinking I was about to deliver a line that would surely be among the funniest ever, I raised my voice slightly, so that an elderly gent approaching from the sidewalk could hear. “What are they going to do in Wisconsin, park between cows?”

The elderly gentleman shot me a particularly withering glance, then unlocked the punchline of our conversation and drove off. I’m not sure whether or not they give “the finger” to cows in Wisconsin. However, he seemed to have had enough practice in the maneuver to perform it a damn sight better than his parking skills.

On a scale of one to ten, it was roughly a three in terms of social fuck-ups. Had I played my cards right, there was still the possibility that maybe my female companion would think I was just “slow” instead of full on major-head-trauma-makes-baskets-and-pisses-himself socially retarded. Unfortunately however, I erased all doubts that I ride the short bus of cool that evening at dinner.

We arrived at a stylish sushi restaurant from the blustery cold and were shown to our table by a slender, attractive Japanese waitress. As I shucked off my coat, I turned slightly towards my date who was saying how exquisite the food at this establishment was. My second of distraction allowed our slender waitress the chance to silently glide by me, back towards the kitchen. She would have succeeded, too, had my arm not shot up in an attempt to extricate myself from my top coat. Basically, my arm and her head tried to occupy the same space simultaneously. But just like the Highlander, “in the end, there can be only one.” My arm laid a WWF-worthy clothesline on the 90 pound waitress. I should just start calling my right arm “Connor MacLeod.”

I apologized, helped the poor girl to her feet and sat down as quickly as I could. I contemplated, briefly, asking my date to call me “Ike” for the rest of the night. Instead, I went about digging my hole even deeper.

About five minutes later, she returned to set-up a table right across from us. I got up, walked over to her and said, “Listen, I feel really badly. Are you sure you're ok? Is there anything I can do?”

All I got in return was a blank stare.

“I’m really sorry.” I floundered on. “I didn’t see you. I swear, I didn’t mean to hit you like that.”

“You hit me?”

Suddenly sensing that my evening was about to get much worse, I glanced desperately around the restaurant...and saw a second, very similar-looking Japanese girl holding an ice-pack and taking an order of a customer at the end of the room. I was right. The evening HAD gotten worse.

Thank you. You've been a great audience. I'll be here all week.

All I needed to do at this point was to squint my eyes and yell, “Me so sowwy. Me love you long time, silly American round-eye.” I really might as well have just said, “All you rice-eating cunts look the same.”

Smooth. I wonder if they’ll cut me open when I’m lynched by rightfully-offended Wisconsinites and Japanese waitresses and find that I have some sort of neurological disorder. In the meantime, I think I should just start wearing a helmet and carrying a drool cup, just in case. Because the sad thing was that this was my vain attempt at being cool. Sort of like Chimps, using tools. I can’t even comprehend how big of an asshole I am when I just don’t give a shit.