A heart stopping good time!

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So I thought I would share this story of a random run in with an ex-girlfriend and get some feedback. Not really feeling like typing so I'll just post a link to my blog.

A heart stopping good time!

Too much effort, how about you copy and paste it?

Okay...

Shane and I went to see We Own The Night last night. The weekend off had been pretty much crap up until then and I wiped on the rest of the plans in favor of a movie I had been wanting to see since I saw the first trailor. Most the movies I think I'm going to like rarely ever let me down. Can't say as I can complain though, I've been enjoying myself lately.

As we walked into the mall headed to the Amstar, Shane and I were locked in our usual banter. I don't even remember what we were talking about, but I had just said, "You won this round Shane Walker... but next time..." I was still murmuring something when I stepped in line right behind the guy at the box office. The guy stepped away. Naturally, when I'm with friends I just never look at people until I have to interact. I didn't see it coming.

As soon as I stepped up to the window and made eye contact, immediately recognizing who was looking back at me... well, theres not any way to describe it. The word that I would assign to the thought would be something close to "AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!! !! !"

And naturally my brain just completely rebooted at that point. You see, when you have people like this, you haven't seen them in forever, you don't ever see yourself having a conversation, you still inhabit the same town so there is still the possibility, however remote, where you have a random encounter that you don't see coming and you can't avoid. That stuff happens. It's reality. In this case the odds were up. She occupied a job at a pinch point that I was inevitably going to pass through at some point. It's the closest movie theatre and I always go to see movies. I completely love movies.

So in the moment of my realization, in the ticks between seconds I try my best to regain my composure and keep any reaction from showing on my face. Yeah, I know... fat chance when the last thing that passed through your brain was "AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!! !! !" There's got to be a facial expression associated with that.

I immediately break eye contact and look down at my hand. For some stupid ass reason at this point I have this feeling that if I'm not making eye contact, it's like she can't see me or recognize who I am. Yeah... Like I'm invisible or something...

Because that would work after the fact.

The one saving grace to that moment was looking down and seening the money in my hand, suddenly realizing what I was doing. The shock was so bad I couldn't even remember what we were seeing. I couldn't formulate the words. I couldn't formulate any words.

Trying not to look at her, I look up at the list of movies and times on the board... and I couldn't read any of it. It may as well have been in portugese. The thought is pretty hysterical when you look back on it, but at the time I felt like I was going to die. Seconds were crawling like an eternity. I kept hoping Shane would say something.

When I could finally speak I turned and said, "Ummm. What are we doing?"

"We Own The Night."

"Right. Two for We Own The Night."

By the time she quickly slid the tickets and change back to me, Shane had already turned and headed for the lobby. He couldn't keep a straight face anymore. When I rounded the corner into the lobby and I could see him laughing.

"Wow, I was impressed. You handled that really well."

My jaw dropped (although I was half laughing too). "Are you crazy?!? I completely froze up. I couldn't remember the name of the movie. I couldn't speak. I couldn't even read the sign. It looked like jibberish to me! I immediately broke eye contact because for some reason I thought she wouldn't recognize me if I didn't look at her" I told him how it went down from my perspective and he just started laughing more.

"You know, the funniest thing about it, you both failed miserably in your horribly inadequate attempts to hide who you were. She grabbed her hoodie and pulled it over her nametag after you'd already clearly recognized her." he laughed some more "Thank you for this John. As Peyton would say, 'That was worth more than the price of admission.'"

We laughed about it going into the theater. I had actually crushed the tickets as I held them in my pocket walking in. I kept thinking about it through the whole movie and I must have been showing it. I looked over at Shane a few times and caught him laughing at me.

While it's not what I would have thought as the ideal way for it to go down, nothing in this world is ideal. Having one of my best friends there for what was probably one of the best laughs of the month... It becomes another funny story to tell. One more reminder as to why we shouldn't always take ourselves so seriously, I guess.