Two Stories that Involve Me Throwing Something Over My Shoulder

Story One:

I need to tell a story, and I don’t have a good explanation for how things went the way they went but I think about it a lot, so let’s talk. I’m at a bar. Sober. I’m with my friend, Andrew. Sober. We’re with three young women we’d just me. Sober. (It's not that my default state isn't one of sobriety but given the bar and also my actions, one might think otherwise). We’d engaged in conversation because I was polling the bar about who was more attractive - my one friend or Andrew. I’m not using the other guy’s name because we’re not actually friends. Not that we’re enemies, we just don’t talk anymore, and we were never close enough for me to tell him that I was using his likeness to belittle a friend with whom I was close enough to poll a crowd of strangers regarding his attractiveness. Anyways, Andrew was a little upset because he was losing. Andrew’s a good-looking guy - like a 7/10. I told him it wasn’t about him being unattractive, it was about the other guy being more attractive. I just wanted to prove a point because I’m a bad friend and he’s a good sport. I’d gone to this table and asked the girls and he’d lost 2-1 and then I’d brought Andrew over and told him which girl had voted for him and then we’d moved on to more important matters like what they were doing in LA and how they knew each other. A girl who looked like Jessica from New Girl was telling me about how she was a musician and she’d just finished her first album and she was talking about some more serious stuff in there like love lost and whatnot and I asked her if she was relying on life experiences for her inspiration and she said “no, I just imagine what it’s like.” I had mixed feelings (they weren't really that mixed - I thought she was a fraud) about it but the conversation continued. The girl that wasn’t the musician and wasn’t the one who said Andrew was more attractive than the other guy was focusing on a pasta dish. It felt weird. Now here’s the part where I still don’t understand why I acted the way I acted - not the attractiveness voting; that was standard behavior. I ask her what she’s eating, and she tells me, and I comment that it’s kind of a unique move to be at a crowded sports bar on a Friday evening to eat Italian and she agrees and says she doesn’t really like it. So, I grab it and toss it over my shoulder, not looking, kind of like you would with a Dixie cup headed to a trash can. But there was no trash can behind me. More importantly, this was no Dixie cup. This was a full-on marble-like bowl with a handle and everything. Serious kitchenware. Not serious enough to not shatter on the floor behind me, causing a scene, a mess and everything else. Bits of bowl and pasta abound. I’m not looking, because I’m trying to keep a straight face and act as if it was a normal thing to do, but the three female faces in front of me were perfectly replicating the shocked emoji* and Andrew is crying tears of dismay and laughter simultaneously. But somehow the mess was cleaned up, I talked my way out of being kicked out of the bar and also out or leaving the table, and we ended up having an excellent time together. Andrew ended up dating the girl who chose him for three months** before they amicably split and remained friends. That’s the whole story. All’s well that ends well?

*📷 ** This is a pure, unadulterated lie. They did not date. We never spoke to any of those women again. I think that girl had a boyfriend, to be honest. I wonder if they’re still together. She seemed nice. I hope so.