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Like a lot of people these days, I backup everything semi-important in my life on a single, solitary flash drive, and last time I went to a reading in Philadelphia (a rare occasion) I met someone who I thought might turn out to be a very special someone but who, it turns out, was only a twenty-first century succubus intent on stealing my flash drive instead of my soul. After the reading, this particularly enticing young lady and I tagged along to a party in South Philadelphia where everyone was drinking cans of PBR and standing around a fire in the middle of a small backyard surrounded by the small backyards of rowhomes. Talking with this particularly enticing young lady I met, it was like no one else existed in the world at the time. I found the young lady “particularly enticing” because she was like the female equivalent of a golden eagle in flight. And she seemed to like me, even though I’m like the psychological slash emotional equivalent of a sickly weasel struggling to swim through an unending stream of its own excrement. If I haven’t yet made it clear, she seemed very gifted in terms of attractivity, which can be determined by how often and how long people stare at someone, and in her case, everyone looked at her and held those looks as long as possible. So I, unafraid of admitting to being ridiculously freaking superficial, was psyched that this particularly enticing golden eagle-in-flight of a young lady seemed to like little old weasel-in-excrement me and also seemed perfectly naturally unselfconsciously smart and silly and, who knows, maybe, just maybe, might be someone with whom I could like forever spend what’s left of my life, who might be able to transform my lonely little perfectly adequate existence in Philly into something so much more than that. But then we went back to my perfectly adequate studio apartment in Cheesesteak Gardens, which is what I call the ever-improving neighborhood around the famously dueling cheesesteakeries, Pat's and Geno's. Some people call the neighborhood Cheesesteak Vegas thanks to Geno's excessive neon cheesesteak displays, but since a community garden started up at the corner of 10th and Federal, I’ve called the neighborhood Cheesesteak Gardens. It’s a little annoying that there’s a “member’s only” sign outside this community garden near the cheesesteakeries, but I suppose there’s not enough room for everyone in the community to garden out there while they eat their overpriced nasty-ass cheesesteaks. Anyway, we went back to my tiny little studio apartment and watched The Breakfast Club. She had never seen it before. Regardless, before Judd Nelson instructed Molly Ringwald that CLAIRE is a fat girl’s name, we very naturally and very wonderfully ended up in my bed. In the morning, when I got up to use the bathroom, she looked so good half-covered in my sheets, I was thinking this is so great, I mean it’s not the first time I’ve felt like this about someone I’ve fallen into bed with, but it’s definitely like the first time in a long time I’ve felt like it all felt so right and natural and, anyway, I was just kind of doing a little happy dance in my tiny, reasonably clean bathroom, thinking maybe I could take her out to brunch or something like that, even though I generally sort of loathe the entire endeavor known as brunch—the crowds and the wait and the excessive morning noise when hungover, the unnecessary expense, the estrogenic flowery touches on the tables, the watery eggs Benedict, the underdone home fries, the vegan chorizo egg-less omelets, the rosewater tempeh and poached albatross fetus burritos, the deepwater horizon chocolate-covered Chihuahua frittatas, the fucking mimosas, the bourgeois toxicity of it all!—but then I thought maybe the way I’m starting to feel about this girl would make it so I might even sort of actually at one point tolerate the usually unfavorable endeavor known as “brunch,” and so then when I returned to the bathroom, about to extend to her an invitation to maybe go to the Royal or Sabrina’s or Morning Glory or one of those overpacked intolerably popular Brunch places, this is what I saw: She was sitting naked in front of my computer. She wasn’t writing a facebook update or a blog post or anything like that about activities in which we’d engaged the previous evening. Instead, I saw her yanking my flash drive from its USB port in my computer. She looked at my flash drive for awhile, she contemplated it, she polished it with some spit, and then she wiped it clean on her thigh. She then squatted a little bit . . . and inserted my flash drive, tampon-like, into her own personal security deposit box. As she got dressed, I was totally entirely speechless. It was like I’d ingested more than my share of weapon’s grade LSD. Everything kaleidoscopically blended into everything else in a way that one would never say was necessarily a GOOD way to feel. But somehow through all the multicolored swirling of confusion and surging of emotion at the moment, I heard her say she had to go home. And then, just like that, my particularly enticing, golden eagle-in-flight, love ‘em and leave ‘em, flash drive thief was gone. I never thought that going to a reading on a Friday night could introduce into my life such mystery. I mean, I doubt she’s a spy who thought my flash drive contained sensitive secrets regarding national security, or something more than illegally downloaded music and all my writing and photos and stuff that maybe has some value to someone somewhere who’s especially psychopathic. Or maybe someone else is behind this? Did Ed Snider, the chairmen of Comcast Spectacor and therefore owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, hire her to punish me for all the horrible comments I posted last year about the Sixers’ management on Philly.com? Or did Osama bin Laden or, better yet, the former president of the United States, George W. Bush, compel her to abscond with my flash drive in her George W. Bush? It’s totally possibly that she was simply a garden variety cleptonymphomaniac, but otherwise I can’t answer these questions. So if anyone can help me get in touch with her or if you know anything about her or if a similar thing has ever happened to you, maybe let’s talk about it sometime soon? And, Rachel, if you’re reading this right now while disguised as an invisible flying weasel right this minute having vigorous intercourse with an invisible golden eagle in the clear cold air above Philadelphia, or perhaps you’re behind a bar right now, kneeling out of sight, performing fellatio on the bartender, reading this on your iPhone, please know I really liked you, I’d really like to get my flash drive back, and also I’d really like to know why, after such a great night, you pocketed my flash drive in your twa-twa, grifted it in such a weird yet oddly sexy way, and then split, leaving me to think the good lord was laughing at me. I mean, no worries. I won’t press charges. I’m a very understanding person. Please just let me know what’s up. Solve this mystery. Return my flash drive. And come back and love me one more time again! Thanks! |
