10/26/2009

"You did what?!" Mandy exclaimed, upon hearing of my weekend shenanigans with Brandon.

So did Ginger, Spencer, Sarah and everybody else I shared my stupidity with. I confessed for a multitude of reasons; the number one stemmed from the hope that someone - anyone - would've agreed that my plan was a good one and that they, too, if faced with a similar predicament would act in the same way I had. Of course, I've already told you how they reacted.

My other reason was rather self-deprecating. It was hoped that by admitting how much of a fool I made of myself, it would further prevent me from doing it again, because after my initial failure in leaving the cookies at Brandon's door, and ultimately giving them to Bart instead, I went home and began plotting how I would be able to "bump into" Brandon at some near point in the future.

You can't be surprised I hadn't learned my lesson, are you?

And this brings me to my third reason for telling everyone I knew. Though you may not have been shocked that I was still hinging my bets on meeting Brandon, The Banshee was. She and I had quite the bitter exchange and she could not for the life of her understand or support my continued pursuit. So, she and I reached a compromise: If I could find one - just one - friend who supported any of this, she'd shut up and back off and let me go about my foolish business.

The Banshee hoped to mock and humiliate me, and I hoped to find the voice of reason, since I considered hers to be anything but.

You see, however, from the responses already reported, my wish did not come true. Being a woman of my word, I gave up the nonsense and did my best to forget about Brandon. Which actually proved to be an easy thing to do for about 3 days until I ran into him in the laundry room.

"Hey there!" he said as he walked in with an over flowing basket of dirty clothes. "I see you made it home okay."

I smiled. "Yes, thank you. I'm really sorry about how I acted that night, I feel really silly."

"Seriously, you shouldn't be. I tell my girlfriend all the time to keep her eyes open when she walks home at night by herself."

Girlfriend? My heart sank at the idea. It also sang praises of hallelujah that Brandon was not home to witness the cookie incident and seemed to be none the wiser about it.

"I didn't know you had a girlfriend," I commented, realizing as The Banshee kicked me in the mental shin that that sounded like the most stupid statement ever. How would I know he had a girlfriend? I didn't even know his last name, well, not officially, anyway. The Banshee was quick to also mention that the only reason I knew where he lived was not due to any amount of informational sharing that had happened between he and I up to this point, but rather because I was the psycho stalker neighbor girl.

Awesome.

"Yeah, she moved here last spring for work. She's the reason I moved to Boston to begin with.

It just took me awhile to be able to find a job here, too," he said, shoving clothes into the washer next to mine. I saw several pairs of pink and black lace underwear intermingled with his tighty-whities.

Well it looks like "the girlfriend" is a serious one if he not only moved here for her, but is also washing her unmentionables, The Banshee pointed out. And for the record, you cannot date a man who wears tighty-whities, even if he does turn out to be the last single man on the planet. Comprende?

So fine. He had a girlfriend. And had bad taste in men's underwear. Both things I was relieved to have discovered sooner rather than later.