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It Happened to Me

Never a dull moment when I’m dancing

Scene 1:

Velvet Underground, a slightly gothy alt-rock dance bar.

Drunk Guy 1: Duuuuuuuude!

Me: Dude.

Drunk Guy 1: I love you, man! You play accordion!

Me: Hey, thanks!

Drunk Guy 1: Can I borrow it? I just want to try it out.

Me: Sure.

I don’t really have any trouble with letting people try on the “street” accordion. It’s tough and it’s already taken a fair beating; there’s not too much harm that even a drunk person can do to it. With the “stage” accordion, it’s a different story.

Drunk Guy 1: Here. Take my cell phone as collateral.

He hands me his cell phone. It’s the top-of-the-line Samsung, probably worth 5 times the resale value of the street accordion. he fumbles his way through Stairway to Heaven.

Guy at Bar: Hey, Accordion Guy. Been meaning to say “hi” to you.

Me: Hey there.

Guy at Bar: I dated [New Girl] a little while before you did.

Me: Whoa. Glad to see you came out of it alive.

Guy at Bar: Yeah, got out of it early. Good to see you’re in one piece. Hey, she’s been hanging around again — people have seen her around. Looks like she’s not hiding anymore.

Me: Who wants to hang around with her anymore? Isn’t she on everyone’s shitlist yet?

The story about me and the New Girl travelled quickly around the local goth grapevine, and after that, a lot of people stepped forward with their own stories of how they’d either been burned by her or seen her con someone. Accordion City’s black-clad are a pretty tight community; you’d be hard-pressed to find an local goth who hasn’t heard of her.

Drunk Guy 1: Thanks for loaning me the accordion! Dude, you rock!

Sam: Ooh, you’re such a celebrity, can I touch you?

Me: (Using my Strong Bad voice) “Ladies, line up to my left for make-outs! Dudes, line up to my right for high-fives!”

Any locals seen New Girl around?

Scene 2:

The Rivoli, on Kickass Karaoke night.

Punk Rock Girl, a skinny pleather-clad blonde with librarian glasses, the sides of her head clean-shaven and the rest of her hair done up in a single top-of-the-head “Pebbles” ponytail, walked right up to my chair and looked straight at me. I took a final swig of my rye and Coke and stood up to dirty dance with her.

All was going swimmingly (and somewhat cheesily, what with that knee-between-your-partner’s-legs dance) until I felt a tug at the belt loop at the back of my pants. Why is it that someone always attempts to interrupt me from behind when I’m trying to get my flirt on?

It was her girlfriend, a tank-top wearing blonde with enough tattoos to qualify her for the Japanese mob, a mess of piercings and a very annoyed frown that said “Mister Y-chromosome Breeder, you have three seconds to save your nuts.”

I put one arm around Punk Rock Girl’s waist, took her hand with my other hand, and executed a passable tango dip. I spun around her so that she was now beside Angry Girlfriend, and after spinning her around once, twirled her free into Angry Girlfriend’s arms.

The whole exchange felt like a deleted scene from a Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers movie directed by Tarantino or Kevin Smith.

“Easy come, easy go,” I said, as I returned to my seat.

“Oh, Joe, you could’ve have gone home with both of them!” exclaimed Eldon, momentarily forgetting the definition of the word lesbian.

Sam was still laughing and clapping. “That just made my night. She would’ve totally kicked your ass.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my battle prowess, Sam.

Who’s the cat who won’t freak out, when there’s angry dykes about? JOE! Daaaaaamn right.

11 replies on “Never a dull moment when I’m dancing”

Hey Joey,

I heard about New Girl popping up and was going to email you, but lookit you with the posting before I could!!

She posted in her LJ, with some tripe about wishing people had enough balls to confront her to her face, which caused a flurry of activity as many of the “black clad” raced to make her wish come true, but she’s screened the comments so alas, no confronting for her, and no venting for them.

She may be out again, seems 6 months is the turn around for her, something to look forward to.

(In other Joey-related tales, my cell kept trying to phone you this weekend, must be a sign!)

-Whistleblower

No, YOU can’t be Joey, because *I* am going to be Joey!

Oh, whoops. Since I’m a caucasion female american with little musical skill and ZERO talent on the dance floor, that’s a bit difficult.

Hrm. Can I be a groupie?

I’m not a good dancer either. You’d be surprised what kind of dance moves you can summon when your nuts are at stake!

Hey, Whistleblower!

I have no idea whom New Girl — ah, screw it, what’s she going to do, sue me? — Emily is going to hang out with. She must have double-crossed, lied to and stolen from a good number of regulars at all the usual hangouts.

I may have to check out her LiveJournal again. Could you send me the URL?

By the way, I still owe you many drinks for saving my ass. Perhaps next week?

What I want to know is this: what was Punk Rock Girl doing flirting with Manly Joey and his org – um, accordion, with Angry Girlfriend so close by? At least it was Kevin Smith and not, say, Coppola.

– The Redhead

Hi, Redhead!

The possibilities are:

– It’s the old “Let’s make the significant other jealous” play as playful jape, maybe even some kind of inside joke between the two.

– It’s the old “Let’s make the significant other jealous” play as hardcore relationship one-upwomanship.

– It’s some kind of role-playing kink in which I unfortuantely got to play only a bit part, and an unsuspecting one at that. Hey! I happen to be pretty good at role-playing ki — erm, I mean, I’m a good improvisational actor.

===

By the way, which Coppola did you mean — Francis Ford or Sophia?

Heh. I pick the third one. And…either Coppola will do in this case, I suppose. 🙂

– The Redhead

So let me get this straight? You beat up gay guys for dancing with your girl, but run away from lesbian women after dancing with their girl? Cool.

The former was me demanding respect, while the latter was me showing respect. Get my drift?

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