The Lost Plum…

As I mentioned yesterday, I had been on “assignment” this past week.  So as I was fruit dropping in Whole Foods stores across the city I noticed something.

All the men are buying vegetables: not buying fruit. (could be a good thing)

So being the engineer my parents wished  I had become, I came up with a game I like to call.

MAN BOWLING

Rules of the Game: take one piece of fruit and roll (bowl) it towards an attractive man, and try to get it as close to him (the pin) as possible. Upon rolling quickly and flirt-erly chase after the fruit! Giggling is encouraged!

If you look at my states from yesterday, the fruits with the highest probability of ‘scoring’ were round and rolled well (oranges, coconuts, lemons)

Also, this game allowed me a greater playing field, I didn’t have to wait for a man to walk by me, I could roll my orange from produce into the meat section or frozen section (depending on the store) very easily.   

Also, this game is much more physical then just dropping fruit; it combines food and sports (2 of the best things ever!) 

SIDEBAR: If you are going to act like a foul and drop fruit to pick up men, you might as go for it and throw fruit allover the place to reach the really cute one way over there!  

FACT: The funny thing is, I’ve never really been bowling.  Unless, you count the tiny ball, more pins, I’m not an American bowling.

* This game is not to be confused with MAN-BASEBALL, the chances of getting a date out of that, aren’t as high….. believe me!

So this past week, Dating Boot Camp was all about how to “get a guy” and “putting yourself out there” As always, the last part of ‘camp’ is questions with the ever exciting (and sometimes changing) man panel.

One woman asked a question about specific places, and techniques to meet men. One of the “men” answered with this technique and place for meeting men: Go into the produce section and when you spot a good-looking man drop a piece of fruit. If he picks it up start a conversation, and if he doesn’t you don’t want him anyways.

FACT:  This is just ridiculous! And Simon Agreed! She also offered up a challenge, and I always up for a challenge agreed!

So over the last few days I have visited 4 WholeFoods stores (at different times and multiple occasions). I picked WholeFoods based on the fact that Boot Camp referred to it as an “organic” place to meet men, and I love a good lame pun!

SIDEBAR: The purpose of this adventure is to try the technique, thus, I used it on men I didn’t always find attractive.

At first it seemed just odd to be doing, but then, like any adventure I set out on, I found it to be fun, and a challenge, and at times maybe a little dangerous.

On the fist day at around 7pm a very nice employee at WholeFoods, came over to me out of concerns that I could not “hold onto” my produce.  He was concerned I needed help shopping, or even medical attention.  I assured him I was fine, bought my three pieces of fruit (he followed me all the way to checkout, carrying my fruit), and left and headed further downtown (with 9 business cards in my bag I might add!)

The next WholeFoods wasn’t as successful, and as I looked around thinking this was a bust, I notice another employ behind the meat/seafood counter. He was looking at me, and not in a good way.  He then game me that “come over here” motion with his finger.  I slinked over thinking, shit, I’m in trouble.

Him: What are you doing?

Me: Buying fruit, sorry, I’m clumsy.

Him: (gives me a stern look) You are much more attractive then the older woman who was trying that trick earlier!

(I laugh, what else was I to do)

Success = being asked for my number, and or being presented with a business card. Produce success:

Apple: 2 out of 18

Lemons: 13 out of 20

Coconut: 8 out of 9

Oranges: 13 out of 22

Mango: 4 out of 9

Potato: 19 out of 20 (boys are always buying potatoes)

FACT: I’m left with some bruised up fruit cause I felt bad and had to pay for it.

(reason #___why I’m single: No idea! I can drop fruit like the rest of them)

Last night Simone and I had the pleasure of attending a Thrillist Special Event “The Internet is Out Of Control”. (It’s the start of Internet week ’09) If you aren’t on Thrillist’s email list, which will keep you up-to-date on the ‘hotness’ of happenings around the city (both here and else where) Then you should be…like do it now…I’m waiting…ok…did you sign up?….

So while the Internet superhighway raged out of control, and we sipped on our drinks, we meet an array of colourful and wonderful characters. However, as much as I could gush about all the wonderful people that work at Thrillist (did you sign up yet!?), and all the other random contacts we made, I’m going to focus on one guy in particular.  Actually, this guy falls into the small group I’m calling the “over sexed, but obviously not getting sex Australians” We meet about 6 of them, and I’m sure there were more.  Well, the last one I talked too and his ‘protective’ practices are going to be my focus right now.

One sponsor of last night’s event was Trojan. Now I’ve been to many (and even planned many) a Trojan, and in general a condom sponsored party, and they always ensue conversation topics. So as we walk in, we are handed our “virus protection” for the evening: a product called Trojan 2Go. A condom designed to prevent those ever-awkward moments of pulling out a ‘beat-up’ condom from your wallet, and or purse. (I think they are brilliant! Check them out!)

Fast-forward about 4 hours into the evening…

These two guys (who again fall into the no sex/sexed Australians) come over to talk to us, just after I was able to escape from the last one, who actually said the following to me:  “See I’m leaning into you with my hand pulling you towards me. It shows I’m interested in you and dominant.”  He apparently gets guys to pay him $600 to be his wingman for the night….(if anyone wants to pay me to do that I’ll charge you $20! And I’m definitely a hotter wingman then he could ever be!)

OK OK…so these guys come over. Simone is stuck talking to short terrible hair (lack of hair) one, and I get the big tall one. He proceeds to ask me if I “stocked up on condoms”.  “No. Did you?”  I ask. He then laughs and proceeds to tell me “They are regular sized condoms and they just don’t fit me.”(insert my eye roll…infact Every females eye roll here) He then keeps going on the subject saying things like  “ I wouldn’t know cause I’ve never had to wear one.” And “even the biggest ones are tight”.

Ok I can understand a condom not being comfortable, sure. But too tight, come on.  I’ve always been very very fortunate with experiencing the ‘larger’ side of life, but absolutely not able to wear a regular condom, even if to just getter done….that was a terrible pun;)   And, here’s the other thing.  This guy is clearly trying to pick me up in some shape or form, and at the end of the day he wants to have sex.  So, why on earth would you tell me that you don’t like wearing condoms….speaking from experiences isn’t that the line guys usually save for once your pants are already off!

FACT: You don’t even want to know the number of men in NYC who has herpes…seriously! It’s a scary scary fact…Use a condom, even if it’s a little tight.

 SIDEBAR: As Simone and I discussed this over our late night fried food, we talked about how we’ve all seen a blown up condom….and those things can stretch!

So I stupidly left my gym bag on the subway the other day (on my way to the gym of course)  Well, the guy who found it called the gym, cause it had my pass in it, gave them my ID number and his number for them to pass along to me. I never would have thought that the gym would do such a service, but then I remembered the uber VIP gym package I got (as a gift, I did not pay for that) and I get a nice phone call telling me someone has my bag and here is his number.

I was so relived, not for the bag or contents (we’ll get to those later) but mainly cause I stupidly threw my keys in the bag, and I need me my keys! So I call this guy better known now as ‘key-man’, we pick a starbucks to meet up at and do a bag exchange, except I didn’t really plan on exchanging anything but a thank you.  So in I walkin, and there with my black and green “Showtime” tote is ‘key-man’, wow, not only is this man nice but he ain’t bad looking either. We exchange pleasant remarks I thank him so much, we quickly talked about the stupid MTA rule about how one can’t turn stuff in, it has to be left and discovered by staff to go to lost and found. …ect, ect.

Well, he just called me again.  Said it was being forward but wondering if I was up for doing dinner this week.  I said sure, I mean why not, what do I have to lose.  Well here in lies the problem.  I was going through the bag to clean it out and did a small inventory of the bag.  The question being did this guy become interested in me based only on our meeting, or did he go through my entire bag and just needed verification that I wasn’t a total hideous mess.

Contents of my gym bag:

:Nike shoes (the design your own kind, but they were designed for someone else as a gift and I ended up getting them) and a pair of socks

:Columbia University sweat pants,T-shirt with a Robot that says ” Computing 4-U”

: Playboy U water bottle

:Makeup bag, Brush, hair clips, toothbrush…ect.

:Victoria Secret purchase from the day.  Totally hot sexy black ‘sex’ underwear and bras.

:’T-Minus: The Race to the Moon’,  Graphic novel.

:A notebook, which happens to include a print out of my free and clear STD screen from the doctors. And tickets from like 3 basketball games, and 2 baseball games (all really really really good seats)

:And of course my keys …..and some gum.

Are we laying bets on if he looked through the bag?

FACT: I can get into my house, and I’m STD free. A pretty good day is I say so my self!

I haven’t lived alone in a very long time.  Although, we could say there were points in grad school where I lived with a few roommates I never saw, and never talked too (due mostly to our class schedules being so radically different) I’m always fine with the idea of sharing things, I’m always (or would like to think I’m always) open to having people use my stuff, eat my food, and all the roommate type stuff….to a certain point of course.

I’ve never had anything bother me except this:  If you are going to eat or take something that I purchased with my money and use the entire thing up then at least have the courtesy to throw it out. (I don’t need an empty remind of the fact I’m paying for your personal consumption)  So you used up all my salad dressing (the one which is actually really hard to find at whole foods cause its gone with in a second of it being on the shelf!) or all the peanut butter, that’s cool. I don’t really care (well the salad dressing thing really pissed me off!)

Just throw the jar out. I probably wouldn’t even notice it, and just be like “oh I guess I finished that up…hmmm…oh well, off to buy more”  

But when I open the fridge and see that completely ( i mean completely!) empty glass salad dressing jar I kind of want to scream.  Like are you kidding me! That’s such a piggish rude thing to do, and it’s not the first time you have done something like that!  

FACT:  I’m leaving the jar in there, and not throwing it out!

FACT:  My actual roommate isn’t the one who used/ate my stuff.