The Trouble with Girls is

No one can figure them out. Here's a recent encounter I had with a girl at Starbucks about a week ago. Clearly some time has passed, so many of you may doubt that I have the ability to totally recall what the girl said. Well fear not, I have Total Recall. I bought it for 5 bucks at Wal-Mart last year. Pretty hot movie actually, Arnold Schwarzenegger goes to Mars and gets attacked and in the end almost gets his face melted off from what I recall. Then later he runs for governor versus Arnold from Different Strokes. It's a heartwarming story of love. I really recommend it.

So, last week I was predictably at Starbucks where I spend a lot of quiet time reflecting on the nature of man and his own ultimate mortality versus his final destination and of course his final destination 2.

Me, quiet guy, and sensitive guy were talking at a table outside Starbucks some time after they closed. Some people might find this strange, what with us hanging out at Starbucks and all. Some people ask me, "What do you do at Starbucks?" "We talk", I tell them in mock amazement. A lot of people are talking less and less these days. I mean there's more chatter than ever before, but very few people are actually talking anymore, and that tends to put a damper on conversation.

So, this girl comes out of Starbucks that I don't know anything about at all, except that she must know how to mix Coffee and Chocolate to some degree. And no, I don't know why I capitalized those 2 words in that last sentence. Please don't ever ask me about it again. Sensitive guy mentions that she's in college and taking classes on something in economics. All the economic theory I've learned has been from people in talk radio disecting things they read in newspapers, and then telling people who call in that they are wrong, and stupidly so at that. Naturally of course, this means that I tried to engage her mind right away. I wanted to probe it with a stick and discover if there was any intelligent thoughts there, or if it was all just knee jerk reactionary liberalism stemming from divorced parents, and probably a gay uncle who molested her somewhere down the line.

"So what do you think about the Fair Tax proposal?" I asked her as she was walking towards our table. She of course hadn't heard about it, since probably everything she knew about economics or politics came from her liberal arts classes, and watching the O.C. every week. I can't hold that against her, there's a lot of dumb people out there that want to act like they know something but can't really talk about it, without seeming like they're lecturing you, which they are since they're just regurgitating everything they heard in class. My cousin David for instance steadfastly refuses to listen to any ideas espoused by any talk radio commentator, or any conservative columnist because he says they're biased and he already knows their arguments, and he disagrees with them. Yeah, you could say he's close minded.

"The fair tax?" she asked with a curious look on her face while wrinkling her chin. "What's that?" As soon as I explained to her that the idea came from Neal Boortz, a talk radio personality that comes on from 10 am to 12 pm monday through friday on am 790, she let loose her abrasive personality, and spilled her guts. "You mean conservative radio, because that's all it is." She whined breathlessly. "God I hate Rush oooooooo. He makes me so mad. Sean Hannity. BARRRRF!" I didn't quite understand her hatred for "conservative radio". After all, everyone on "conservative radio" earned their place on the national scene by paying their dues with smaller gigs across the country for years, whereas the liberal radio station Air America was self appointed by Communists and Socialists, and none of the major hosts of any of the programs had been working in radio their whole lives and developed a following because of their radical thought and ideas. Many of them were just put in place because they were liberal, hated George Bush, and already had a national following in other media. This all somehow managed to filter through my head in the 2 seconds after she said that. Don't ask me how. Because I don't understand it. Seriously.

"Well", I said, desparately trying to placate her and soothe the savage beast. "The book is a number one bestseller on the nonfiction list, and it's nonpartisan. I mean, it's about economics not politics anyway. It just really makes sense." This seemed to calm her down for a minute, and temporarily assuaged her rabid desire for red meat. "Okay", she said. "What's it about?" I told her that basically it was a system that would eliminate the I.R.S. and charge a flat 23% sales tax on everything. Her response involved the word stupid, so I didn't want to bother with giving her more ink than she deserves.

Then sensitive guy cut in, and told me that she had a hard day and I should take it easy on her. "Ask her about sports", he said, motioning to her. "Do you like basketball?" She did indeed like basketball and went on to talk about it for a minute or so before letting loose the complaints of her day and general frustrations with things. Since sensitive guy had shown me the error of my ways, I didn't make a peep the whole time she was talking, which by the way, seemed like forever. She wouldn't shut up for anything.

I didn't talk again until she mentioned that she also worked at Heaven and Earth. I piped up quickly with this new bonus entry. "He's gonna toot and I'm gonna scoot" I said proudly. Naturally she didn't know that I was quoting the title of a popular boook at Heaven and Earth. I mean, why would she? After all she only worked there and had probably spent many hundred of days inside the 4 walls of Heaven and Earth, whereas I have only been in one probably 8 or 9 times in my life and that was one of the titles I remembered from my browsing. Sensitive guy, with a lot of poking and prodding, got her to acknowledge that she knew the author, once we figured out the author's name.

This whole affair probably succinctly illustrates how I relate to the ladies. I treat everything like it's an interview, knowing firsthand that first impressions count, and if a woman doesn't have something of substance to say when I ask her a question that is supposedly in her field, then my opinion of her will drop sharply. I don't give people little bites of Josh unless I'm sure that's all they can handle. New people get the whole enchilada, because I've found that if they can't handle it now, then they probably won't ever be able to handle it, and someone that can't handle it, isn't someone that I want.

Yes, I'm a very difficult person. It's because I have standards.