What an awesome power I command!

Well, bless my soul, I've come to realize that new acquaintances can blossom in any number of glorious ways; they may result in lasting friendship, bloom into a bubbling cauldron of steamy romance, get you free sandwiches at a Quiznos, or even develop into something even more miraculous, wherein willfully leaving your copy of the film Hotshots at that person's home seems not only acceptable, but downright logical, even though you've already watched the movie together once and so the next time the dvd is taken out of its case probably just means there is a small clump of dried oatmeal on the coffee table that needs to be scraped off.

One of the most significant ways I've used to determine that a certain someone is a terrifically worthwhile addition in my life is the conversation. Even telephone conversation, which I avoid occasionally/periodically/normally/every conscious moment, unless it's regarding something urgent, like lab results or olive dip recipes, slaps a smile on this ol' pasty face. Now, there is one specific person who I'm speaking of, but for anonymity's sake I will call her... Choco-paws.

Choco-paws was feeling a tad under the weather the other day and, regrettably, we had to cancel plans that we had for the evening. Thankfully we did have time for a nice chat, and just before we hung up she politely informed me that she needed to hurry and find a suitable place to throw up, since she had been fighting the urge to do so for... well, at least a handful of minutes I'm assuming. So I took her word for it which, being a trusting soul, I'm accustomed to doing. Yep, because if it weren't true that she was feeling nauseous due to the medication she'd been taking for her aching, fractured rib, it wouldn't speak very well of me. I'll push my own sweet grandmother into a snowbank to be the first in line and trumpet loudly that I'm not always the guy who's gonna charm the socks off you with my Thole brand gab. But, if Choco-paws was not, in fact, feeling ill before our phone exchange that evening, it would serve as a pretty incriminating bit of evidence that a seemingly harmless dialogue with me is enough to not only put you off your lunch, but instill in you a fiery passion to vomit powerfully into any nearby empty container you can find. And really, as quirky personal gifts and party tricks go, it's a pretty disgusting one... not that it wouldn't be fun to maybe test the theory out next time I attend a police auction or something. I'd just like to think I've got some amount of control over it. Well, I suppose I could bone up on a few ASL basics to be on the safe side. As long as I can sign "yes", "bathroom", "potatoes" and "no, that's a bleach stain", I should be okay for a while.