I love my roommate: Part Deux!

I was working on my Strengths of Materials homework, but needed a break, so I figured to try to turn myself around by posting on here about how much my roommate rocks instead. :) :) Guess what excellent dance she pulled off for me today!?!?!

The story all starts with me running out of shower gel. Bath and Body Works Shower gel. Joyful Gardens, Moonlight Path, it is my distinct scent, and anyone who smells it on me, loves it (except for my dear roomie, because apparently her mom wears the same scent, so she smells it all the time, :) ).

Anyway, you can only buy this shower gel at Bath and Body Works, and since I don't think I'll be making it home to Green Bay until Thanksgiving, where I can buy it, I knew I had to go out somewhere in Milwaukee to find a B&BW store out there to stock up on my stuff.

Megan and I looked up all the local malls, to save us a trip, since I asked her to go with me to travel somewhere. The downtown Milwaukee mall along Grand Avenue didn't have any B&BW store, so we next checked the Bayshore Mall up in the Mequon area. That one did have a B&BW location, but due to a HUGE overhaul of construction and additions to the mall, the roads and bus stops right up to are closed down, so the 15 bus route we'd usually take, didn't get us there.

That left us with the hour-long ride out to Wauwatosa, to the Mayfair Mall.



It is freaking huge. Like an obese Fox River Mall.



Unfortunately, the 21 bus route we had to take, rode allll along North Ave. until the route ended in the Boston Store parking lot at Mayfair Mall. Convenient, that the route dumped us right off to where we needed to go, but not so convenient that it required a usually hour-long bus ride through "God's country" Riverwest, in order to get there.

To shorten this up so as to prevent a story inside of a story: I've never seen so many subsequent bars, shops, and homes with iron-chain bars and fences running along the whole length of their building faces to prevent break-ins, in my entire life. Nor dirty, unkempt empty lots, where cars are put up on blocks next door to some house with chipped paint, fallen-in front steps, and punched out windows. You can bet your upper-class ass that Megan and I were the only white people on that bus. I felt very very uncomfortable, but I was SO so so so so glad she was with me, she acted like everything was okay the whole time. She sat nice and relaxed, and smiled and made me feel like I could sit still in my seat and just breathe. Even if my hands were sweating as I was holding on to my purse. I was very thankful for her prescence.


Oh, but it gets better.


*Shivers*


We got to the Mayfair Mall all just fine, and the ride in was quiet, the bus was pretty empty (just all black). We found Bath and Body Works, and looked for the shelving section where all the types of products in my scent were. We looked and looked and looked: no shower gel. Just lotion, butter lotion, body cream, body lotion...all these silly girly names that really spell down to the same thing: lotion.

I needed the soap, that lathered!

So I had the store clerks look in the back for inventory, and really, by the time they came out to tell me they were out of stock, pretty much every store clerk was cued in on my problem and kept coming up to me to try to give me suggestions. Poor Megan was just trying to follow me around aimlessly in a soap store, trying to hunt down a scent that burns her nosehairs! But she did get clever and tell me to just buy plain old lavendar scent for the time being, since that would smell close enough to my scent.

I was about to do that, because the only shower gel of Moonlight Path that was available was in this $20 wicker gift bin thing with a super-glued in combo of other things that I didn't need...oh yah, the stores are already pushing them as Christmas gifts.

Anyway, I was walking along with some "Aromatherapy Lavendar" scent, up to the cash register, when I saw their traveler's bins, and BOOM saw a stash of baby bottles of my scent!! As shower gel!!! FINALLY!!!

I grabbed two of them, put back the stinking Aromatherapy crap, and got all checked out. Yay for Megan, because as soon as we'd take the hour ride back to our apartment, we'd have to hop on the 15 bus so we could go grocery shopping for her (I hold her basket while she puts stuff in it when she shops, since carts are too big for us, hee hee).

We got out of the mall, ran to the bus since it was about to head out, and huffed and puffed while we sat in our seats and prepared for the next hour back through Riverwest.

I had a splitting headache, and I was tired! So I garbishly talked with her on the ride since I wanted to keep her company; the bus stopped on occasion, picking up a few of, uhm, America's finest.


One of them was a horribly, horribly, horribly shwasted black guy with a doo-rag on his head so tight it was sucking his brains out, with oversized JNCO jeans...you know, stereotypical dress code for a gangsta.

He got on at the same time as these two very very young children, and he kept on trying to get them to give him high-fives. They just sat in awkward silence and stared at him, while he would gurgle to himself. It was weird.

Then he got up and walked past where Megan and I were sitting, poked his head down in my face, and made some obnoxious chicken bawk-bawk noise as he kept on walking to take a seat behind us.

Megan and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows, as if to silently say to each other, Did you just smell the straight-up moonshine on his breath?

Sure enough, it was only a matter of five minutes until he came strutting up to hassle us, and plopped down in the bus bench directly in front of us.



He started out by hitting on me, I believe; but his speech was so slurred that all I could make out was "You know, you're really pretty."

I stared straight at him, with a stone-cold Jack Bauer face, said nothing, and then turned away and looked out the dark bus window, focusing my eyes as if I saw something out the window. No really, as if I really did see something out that window! I was desperate!

It must have worked, I must have come off as a bitch, because he turned his big fat pointing index finger from me, over to Megan, and continued to ridicule her.

He started out asking her if she was shy, and why she was really shy, and "what's up? Why are you so shy?" She did the same thing as me at first: stared straight at him with the stone-cold Jack Bauer face, said nothing, would look at me, and then look out the window.

But he would just sit there, lean over towards us, and just stare at her. He'd smile, never blink, lick his lip or something gross, and just stare.

I could tell Megan was uncomfortable, and I was feeling tense. My hands were sweating like mad.

She'd look out the window, then at him, then at me, then past me out my window, then back to him, and then out her window. All the while, he'd just stare at her, never even moving his head.

Finally, Megan cracked! She looked at him, and smiled. Except when Megan smiles, she gets dimples. Cute dimples. And she looks cute with dimples.

Drunk Black Man picked up on this right away, and started pointing and jaunting about how, "You know, you're really sexy, you've got dimples! I've always wanted dimples." This only spurred on Megan's smiles even more, because of his oddball observation, so she'd uncontrollably smile harder, and the dimples would become even cuter. Drunk Black Man would say, "Oh, you're really sexy, wit dem dimples." (At one point he started twisting the flesh on his cheeks into circles, saying how he always wanted dimples, and Megan actually told him to try staples! HA ha!!)

He escalated to trying to get her to go out to eat with him sometime. God, Megan was so slick, she played it out so calmly, and acted so neutral. She spoke to him in a soothing voice, to keep him calm and not feign interest or get herself backed into a corner. Just that strong, smooth but buttery voice. I was awe-struck, she did a great job.

She mentioned to him that she liked Chinese food, and asked if he liked Chinese food. Apparently to an intoxicated person, Chinese food must be pretty damn exotic, because he actually shut up for 30 seconds or so, blinking hard and trying to wrap his head around that idea.

But he came back to, and then started asking Megan and I to go hang out with him at his "brother's baby's mama's aunt's place on Fratney" or something slurred, we weren't sure. Megan said no, because we had a lot of things to do. (Good girl.) He kept on with, "C'mon, whatever it is, I'll pay for it." She said no again, just a lot of things to do. He then asked what we had to do, and Megan honestly said, "Homework."

Drunk Black Guy beamed because he must have finally realized we were college students. He wheeled in his seat and said, "Oooh, so you's an educated woman, I like that, you're really sexy. I was never good enough for college, I played football for Riverside when I was in high school, do you know where that is? Yeah, I was never good enough for college, and now I know I don't even need ta go, because I'll have you as my baby, and we'd be sittin around the house, or out to eat, or somethin', and you can just teach me instead!"

Megan chuckled at this, and Drunk Black Guy reached the ultimatum: asking her for a pen so he could get her phone number. "I'm not leaving this bus til I get yo number, you're sexy!" He asked her if she had a pen, and she obviously said no. He then turned to look at me, and I said no.

He looked at my big fat purse sitting on my lap, and asked me if I was sure I didn't have a pen, and I answered, "Nope, I don't have a pen, sorry." (Even though I did, this nice red one that Greg teased me once if it was his, because apparently he had the same one.)

Drunk Black Guy then proceeded to get up and ask OTHER PEOPLE on the bus if they had a pen. Fortunately, they all knew what was going on, so they all said no, and then shot quick glances at Megan and I.

So, Drunk Black Guy staggered up to the front of the bus, where the clueless driver in his cockpit had no idea what was going on because he had been concentrating on driving and making all the stops. When Drunk Black Guy asked him the age-old question, the driver jovially said, "Of course!" And handed him a pencil.

Megan and I, cowering in our seats, whispered "SHIT!" to each other, and watched Drunk Black Guy meander back to his seat.

He beamed, showed off his pencil, and Megan innocently shrugged her shoulders and said, "Do you have some paper?" I could tell she was trying to stall. :)

Drunk Black Guy harrumphed and commented about how "you're makin' this hard for me!" while Megan chided, "That's how I play the game." Ha ha.

Sure enough, Drunk Black Guy pulled a tattered-and-torn piece of paper out of his JNCO pocket, and handed it over to Megan.

Megan, as smoothly and naturally as possible, wrote down:

"HOLLY
(414) 639 - 4528"

Or something like that, and BOOM, firmly handed back the paper and pencil to Drunk Black Guy. It was so slick, it looked completely natural and I marveled at how fast she put that together. I knew the whole time leading up to this that she was going to give out a fake name and number, but wow! She was so smooth with it, I really admired her and her grace. Once again, she made me feel safe and like everything was going to be alright, since she thinks spectacularly on her feet.

Drunk Black Guy got off the bus, the doors closed, and the bus started to move away. I turned my head, looked at Megan, and said, "Nice work, Holly." She and I both burst out laughing, and then I wiped my hands on my pants' knees, since they were so fricken sweaty. I told Megan how nervous and sweaty I had gotten, and she said, "Oh I know, me too!!!"

I had had no idea, she is such a pro. I owe her bigtime!

Once we got off the bus, we compared notes about what we would have done if we had to get off before him, and if he would have watched us or followed us. We both knew with instinct to have started walking in a fake direction, on purpose, and once the bus was out of sight, to turn back and go to our apartment for once and for all. Megan was also not sure if I was going to blab in front of Drunk Black Guy that she was giving out a fake name and number, because of being terrified of getting her cover blown. I reassured her that I knew what she was doing, and I totally would have done the same thing.

We then sat back and chuckled about how we "danced" through that tense event: we had this whole secret/silent conversation with exchanging glances and not saying a word, so as not to blow our cover.

The one cool thing is that Drunk Black Guy had also made a comment to us sitting on the bus that we looked like best friends, sitting side-by-side and taking care of each other, like we had been friends for awhile, and I liked that, I like how that is so prevalent already. I like it being so obvious to other people that my roommate rocks and I want to be there for her! People have actually mistaken us for sisters, even though she is the lucky one with dimples, while I've got the face only a mother could love.......if she was blind in one eye and had that milky film over the other one!



Anyway, that is the celebrity story of the night, and I am going to head to bed tonight basking in the awe of how soothing and strong my roommate is. I don't even want to think about how tonight would not have gone without her. She waited patiently while B&BW dragged us around, she thought up of the lavendar substitute, she ran to the bus with me, and she took the hit with Drunk Black Guy. All the while, pulling off the act with a positive, confident aura. I really admire her. WAY to GO, Megan! You are stellar.