Let's Hang Out

       
      Hello, your body looks nice in those clothes. Mind if I come closer to get a whiff of your hair? No? Ok, I’ll smell it later. Who am I? I’m Chris. We have English together and we had Spanish together. Don’t you remember me? Really? You don’t? We’ve talked several times. That’s weird that you don’t remember me. I’ve lent you three pens. And you still haven’t given them back.

       I added you over two months ago on Facebook and you still haven’t accepted my friend request. I’ve been checking every ten minutes to see if you’ve accepted me, but you haven’t. Your privacy settings are really secure and I can’t see any pictures from when you went to Cabo over spring break. I bet you wore a bikini.

What Dads Are For

        

      I found the perfect Father’s Day present. It’s a book called What Dads Are For, which features about a sentence per page with sappy lines about the importance of a dad. Things like, “to teach me how to be honest in the face of hardship,” but sorely missing the more realistic reasons such as, “to put money in my checking account.”

     If I get this for my dad, he will cry and I will win. This was it, a way out. I could buy this for him and call it a day. But I decided not to take the easy way out, I’m almost 20 years old and I should be capable of buying my dad a more meaningful, personalized Father’s Day gift. This book is the type of thing a mom would give to her husband saying it was from their 2-year-old child. I needed something that would pack the same emotional punch as What Dads Are For while also being something personal.

That Signature Look

     I need to be more like Hitler; he had the right idea. Right now I’m too much of an Osama. In case you’re wondering, I’m referring to appearances. I’m not referring to these men’s ideologies; let’s keep this superficial.

      I was on the subway last week and a Muslim man got on the train, dressed to the nines. He had on the full garb (yes, I know I am being insensitive by not using the proper terms for Muslim clothing, but I do not know the actual terms and “garb” is a lot better than calling someone a “towel head,” so we’ll stick with “garb”). The second this man stepped on the train, I immediately thought “Osama Bin Laden!” It wasn’t as though I thought this man was a terrorist but my thought was more of a “Hey, that’s how Osama Bin Laden used to dress.” Still, making this immediate association was a disappointment to me. “Really Chris?” I thought, that's what some Kansas hillbilly in New York for the first time would think. I wanted to go up to this man and apologize and tell him that I respected his religion and maybe buy him some ice cream. But then again, I’m sure almost everyone else in the subway car thought the same thing I did. If I didn’t offer him guilt-ridden ice cream, then someone else would.