Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting on my couch. My leg muscles actually ache because I'm clenching them so tight. I decided to do this blog post in hopes that it would distract me. And it didn't involve moving. 





There's a mouse in my house.

So I know we all have irrational fears. It's a thing. 

But oh my God a mouse. 

I'm alone, the roomie's out. I called the parents and was advised to put out mousetraps. 

I don't ever, ever, ever anticipate seeing a mouse, so why would I have mousetraps?!?!?!?!?! Sorry, that's the terror talking. 

A short time ago (okay, fine, I haven't moved an inch in half an hour), I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye. Running. Across. My. Floor. From the living room. Into the kitchen.

Where did it come from? Where did it go? (PEOPLE - this is no time for "Cotton Eyed Joe" jokes!) 

It went somewhere. Perhaps under the fridge. Doesn't it know there's no food in there? If it wants sprite or Chobani, fine, otherwise it's going to be mad. Then who knows what will happen. Gah! 

I am 27 years old but I've called my mommy twice already. Apparently one cannot provide a mousetrap over the phone. I now know this. 

I haven't eaten dinner. I'm hungry. I really have to pee. But guess what - there's no way in all of Hades that I'm moving off of this futon of safety. 

Sigh.... 

This is NOT a drill, people! Assume the crouch position! 

The Perils of Taking Online Dating Offline

*This is not an exploration of the pros and cons of online dating - nor offline dating, for that matter. This is just a story about a Friday night. Or more accurately, it's a story about a Saturday morning.

This was too perfect...

I woke up on Saturday at 1:24 p.m. - which is about four hours later than I ever sleep in. I rubbed my eyes, my head, wondering if the previous night was just a bizarre dream. I check Facebook - the most reliable and uncompromising record of recent history in most of our lives.

Status update from the early hours of Saturday morning: OH. MY. GOD. NO.

I wish I could just leave it there. I wish a lot of things with regard to Friday night. However - in the interest of processing what happened, and hopefully preventing someone else making the same mistakes - I will share my experience with you, albeit with a bit of reluctance.

The picture: I'm sitting in my gorgeous apartment on Friday night, having finished work late. I'd eaten a delicious dinner, read my book, and had settled down with Netflix and a glass of red for the evening. At a few minutes past midnight, my evening bliss was broken by the buzz of my phone ringing.

It was the guy I'd been talking to online for a few days, with whom I'd made plans for Saturday afternoon. We'd talked about going for a walk through Bute Park, which runs alongside the River Taff in the centre of Cardiff, then maybe finding a pub for a quiet drink. I hadn't felt butterflies, but he seemed nice enough, cute enough, just enough for a Saturday afternoon.

I assumed he was calling to talk about our plans, or possibly to cancel. It was late, and I was tired, but I picked up the call, curious to hear his voice before meeting in person.

As soon as I picked up the phone, I could tell he was having a good night. He laughed a lot, I could hear the smile in his voice and it was infectious. He cajoled me into agreeing to meet him for a drink, and I dragged my butt off the couch and got dressed - nothing too impressive, I didn't want anyone to think I was prepared to put in effort for a last-minute meeting after midnight.

As I walked toward the buzz of Cardiff Bay, I couldn't keep myself from yawning and hoped the guy wouldn't be too put off by my obvious exhaustion. Turns out, I needn't have worried about what he was going to think - about me or about anything else. He was already wasted, with the sole intention of getting even more so, and no interest in getting to know me at all.

As we walked into a bar, we ran into three boys - I can't call them anything else, they looked like they were about 14 - and ended up chatting with them for a while. One was tall with Bieber-sweep hair, and formed an instant drunken bond with my date. One wasn't drinking, and was kind of cute (for a man-child.) The third one . . . well, he at least had some interest in getting to know me. Over lunch, the next day.

I politely declined, at first out of respect to my date and the plans for the following day, which I could tell I was probably going to cancel at this point, especially after he went outside with his new little bro to smoke a cigarette. Dating smokers just isn't my thing.

Before they went outside, Bieber asked me what I wanted to drink and then bought me some sickly pink cocktail that I couldn't drink. I pretended to be sorry, he pretended to be offended. Or perhaps he was truly offended. Either way, I ordered three shots of tequila and said thanks for the drink, while his two friends, and my date, looked at me with bewildered admiration.

Manchild #3 asked me again if he could meet up the next day for lunch. I asked him how old he was.

"I'll be 22 in nine days." I couldn't help myself, I burst out laughing. I almost told him I was 24-and-three-quarters, but caught myself.

He was persistent, showing his age as he began to beg - beg! - me to let him take me to lunch, or coffee, or anything. At a couple points, he leaned in to kiss me, and my own laughter wasn't enough to stop him, though pushing him away to arms' length was.

He told me he was mature for his age, in spite of my efforts to explain that a mature man knows what "No" means without continuing to beg for what he's already been denied. I continued to decline his offers, less politely, for a myriad reasons, some more legitimate than others - but none of them were enough.

Weary from trying to explain why I didn't want to go to lunch and trying to inflate the kid's self-esteem, and feeling tired from the booze, though unfortunately nothing else, I watched Bieber stroll in with my date and announce he had to leave. Who knows what happened out there, but suddenly I was left with a swaying, slurring guy who kept calling me dude (which I kind of like) and accidentally hitting my boobs every other emphatically gesticulated sentence (which I didn't like.)

Now he was sufficiently shit-faced, the topic of conversation (read: monologue) turned to getting high and coming back to my place to hang out. He leaned in to kiss me, his tongue rapidly going from right to left as it approached my face. He didn't even register my look of disgust or my laughter as I pushed him away and told him I'd be going home alone.

Regardless of any "stranger danger" element here - the guy was clearly harmless, just someone who'd had a bad week and gotten too drunk to do anything but drink and rant about work - there was no way in hell I was bringing anyone home with me. I told him as much. I didn't want to help him walk anywhere, I didn't want to help him up four flights of stairs, I didn't want him crashing at my place, I didn't want to deal with him in the morning, I didn't want to meet up in the park.

I. Don't. Want. You.

I wasn't sending mixed signals, I was being completely unequivocal. I was done here.

Well, almost done. He'd lost his sense of direction, and I knew he had to get to the other side of the city, probably two miles from where he currently stood, leaning on me for support. I hailed him a cab, took out the cash I'd withdrawn to pay for drinks, and gave it to the driver, telling him to take my date to wherever he could unlock the door.

Waving them off, I turned, shuddered, and walked home, where I finished the bottle of wine I'd started earlier, and looked at the clock. Almost 3 a.m., I though, shaking my head. What a weird night.

After finishing the wine, the movie I was watching on Netflix, and skyping with my best friend to regale her with my crazy night, I collapsed into bed at around 4 a.m., struck by the surreality of the night, and laughed gently to myself as I drifted off to sleep.

Now, I realise I shouldn't have gone out for a drink with a guy who calls at midnight. But when he said, "Why not?" I literally didn't have (or perhaps want) a reason why not. I just moved to a city where I don't know anyone, and was getting pretty tired of sitting on my own in the evenings. I wanted the spontaneity of deciding to go out at midnight, having a wonderful time with a guy I'd just met, and coming home again. The potential was there. Unfortunately, the guy was not.

I think I'll keep my spontaneous meetups to the daylight hours from now on.

Waitressing Chronicles, Part I:

Hello. My name is Kay, and I am a waitress.

I’ve already decided this is going to be a line I relay in front of a meeting group circle of pitied human beings, all trembling from the harm inflicted to them by the real world; the cruel, scary place outside where nobody cares about what you’ve done, who you think you are or who you think you can be.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t look down on people who are servers, or who are employed in other service duties, for that matter.  It’s just that I am an embittered college grad who is back at square one (or minus ten or twenty, if you include the accumulated debt obtained from those four years—the best years of my life, man!), and am thankful enough to have even found a job as a server in the first place. College didn't prepare me for post-college, and I was jettisoned off into the real world after graduating, landing with a thud on the cold, hard, unforgiving ground. I am seriously fortunate, though. There are a lot of people my age who are unemployed, and while being a waitress can be challenging and unpleasant at times, tips rock and can be awesome, and my job is never boring or dull.

You see, waitressing was always something I thought I could never do. I romanticized it for whatever reason, but it was always something I never fathomed was in my cards.  I’m horrible with strangers—I’m that person that avoids the grocery store until it is an hour before closing, because I can’t stand unknown people. I don’t like interacting with anyone, or feeling their eyes, or seeing that they are picking up dry room-temperature goods after they already gathered their frozen and refrigerated dairy items, and their ice cream is melting, and oh my god that milk is probably warm by now... and, you get the hint. So, waitressing just seemed like a bad idea.

Now that I am a magical food-bringer and drink-filler, I can honestly say nothing could have prepared me for the joys, pains, and ‘what-the-fucks’ of being a server. I’ve gotten to know my regulars, hold disdain for teenagers, crowds of young children, and feel exceptionally exasperated with really confused old people. Every shift is new and never boring. I guess in that sense I am really lucky.

The first time I realized what I might be in for, was during my first week or two of training to be Master Waitress. It’s when I was still freaked out, but ever-so-slightly less freaked out that I was beginning to notice something that was likely there the whole time... creepy old men. Everyone knows the kind. They seem unassuming, with their plaid and their boots. They like gravy on their fries and ask for every refill they can get out of that $2.50 Pepsi they are drinking, repeatedly having to lick the perimeter of their mustache/beard mouth of the liquid and gravy combo inevitably created by the unity of the two. These guys are the outlaws of the American small-town home-style restaurant. They don’t care if you were still cozy and warm in your mother’s uterus while they were watching their son rock their grandchild. You have ovaries (or at least you look like you do, anyway), and you are serving them food. As long as you’ve hit puberty you are fair game to be hit on. Their five to fifteen percent tip DEMANDS that you allow them to hit on you, because that is almost like a surcharge for the harassment they will make you endure.

It all began with the innocent enough “Hey there sweetheart,” “Hi blondie,” and “Hey there good-looking.” Mind you, I don’t and never have gone to work dressing to impress. In fact, I figure the best waitress in the world is very unassuming in appearance; they try to blend into the background, like a ghost of sorts, magically appearing and disappearing in ways that make you think, “I’m not sure how my food just got here, but that was fast! What a great day!” I actually wear all black, keep my hair back, and purposefully make myself look plain but pleasant. This doesn’t stop the creepers, though. I’ve experienced a wide range of discomforts - greetings with ever-so-slight sexual undertones, repeated and relentless requests for hugs, hardcore leering, attempts to touch my hand when I’m putting plates of food or placing drinks on the table... the list could go on.

These incidents made me feel very nervous when I started working at my job. To this day certain moments are fresh in my memory, branded in my brain as if I were another bovine on the market. Thankfully I have a strong-willed, tough, take-no-crap boss who would rush to my assistance if there were ever a need. My own strength of will in regard to defending myself has gotten much better over time, too. Still, the prevalence of the mindset where you just have to accept the existence of these creepy old men baffles and unnerves me. Every single day I wish I could go to their place of work and make them as uncomfortable as they make me sometimes. I know this would never work, though - they would probably love it.

While working in the service industry, there will always be a big part of me that wishes I could blend in like I do in at a 24-hour grocery store at 1:30am, but even then I am able to shroud myself from stranger’s eyes with hats, glasses, scarves, and other implements, something I could never do unless I worked in a very cold restaurant in Iceland. Until then, I suppose all I can do is practice my own Terror-Inducing Leer Defense Glare, doling it out as pleasantly and with as much ease as I would a glass of ice water. I think I get better each time.