D'Other

The Scene: There I was. A weeknight on the town. Trying to Flex My Powers-of-Persuasion Muscle.

Oh the giddy thrill of being rejected by a beautiful woman. exhilaration running through me.

I'll be all swagger and balls and prance up being like "SUP CUS" and she'll be like "ignore" and then i'll remember that i'm a turd. AND TRY AGAIN.

As if the repetition could cause success through force of will.

But it makes me happy. So it's what I DO. Anyway (prepare to experience a heart seizure) I was up to my normal no-goodery when I get a weird spidey sense that everyone I'm hitting in is looking at me funny. Like the mojo has been drained through the sink of the room. I ask Britney The Bartender what's going on. She frowns and points over to the far side of the bar.

There he is. Crazed and confident. Some little skinny punk with a spiky hairdo and, wait for it, a mask. Just like mine! Only this cock is pure ego and panache. Now let me explain something to you here:

My routine is strictly rehearsed. I'm a well oiled machine.
I come in wearing hip, but raggy clothes,
holding a book
wearing my emo-tastic glasses.
I make conversation, awkwardly, stuttering
I'm a smart pitiful loser in there, it's my character.
It only works when women don't have their
"There's another man in the room and he's got a six-pack and a tan"
radar on.

So I come up to the guy. and he's laughing. and drinking some clear liquid in a sweaty stump glass, and I overhear his conversation with these bitches.

"Andrew Jackson, the greatest president ever, beat the shit out of everyone who defied him. If only I could be so brash." He laughs. They all laugh. "Ha ha ha!" Bastards.

What, just because you've found some mask lying around you think Suddenly, you're King Fart of Poo Mountain?

Well I left. I couldn't bear to face the kid. He probably would have picked on my ratty old masque. Or my (old) age. Or I'd turn my back on him for one instant and suddenly find I've lost my anal innocence.

So it seems that there are Two Masked Men In Town. And He's the younger and handsomer of the two. This does put me in an unenviable position.