Of Wingmen

So tonight I had planned to stay in, relax, and otherwise try to prepare myself for the gauntlet that will be Christmas tree shopping with Mom followed by Hanukkah with Dad + Stepfamily, followed by drunken shenanigans followed by depressing nursing home Hanukkah with Grandma the next day. All within normal waking hours, which I can assure you I have very nearly defenestrated out of the Prague that is my life.

Obviously, my plan failed as a friend sent the instant message "hey wat you up to tonight" and since there was no question mark something big was clearly going to happen and there was no time at all for frills and extravagances like punctuation.

Donning my recordedly unlucky but still favorite Santa hat, I set off in my car to this friend's house with the belief we would be going to our regular bar and shoot a few games of pool, and just otherwise let good times congeal around that.

Oh, but did I not mention my unlucky hat? Well, the Unlucky Hat is a wonderful Santa hat. The red and white faux-fur are both their perfect respective lengths, the poofball at the end is just the right size, it is warm but not sweltering, and it fits just so. Also, I have never one a single competitive anything while wearing it. For some reason it simply stops anything from working in my favor. I would stick pins through and through and burn the wretched thing if I did not love it so ridiculously much.

So obviously as I'm driving my friend calls me and says that no one else was up for the bar so I shouldn't bother coming. I told him I was already on my way, so there was a bit of an awkward situation there.

What we resolved was that I should wait five minutes and then call him. He had in his attempts to set something up this evening been invited to go see the movie Avatar, though I'm not sure if either he or his inviter realize that film's still a week away. Maybe they got a preview showing or something, whatever.

The point being, if this had been a group invitation surely I was also invited, but if this had been a date-ish invite, then my presence would be out of the question, more awkward even than the manner in which any friend of ours would say they were "going on a date." We are hangers, chillers, not usually daters.

I decided to pull over in a nearby bank and give it a few minutes, but maybe only a minute later I was called back. Got to love the immediacy of texting someone who actually checks their messages.

It was a date-ish invitation. My friend apologized for bailling but, dude, not that sorry. Nor should he be. Though it's never helped me, the Unlucky Hat has given much of my money to my friends over poker games, has given my honor up over beer pong, and so why now should it not give up the night out I had not planned on having if it could get my friend into see a great movie before the masses?

Also, he's probably getting some mouth sex. Not great mouth sex, but definitely fair to good. Certainly not mediocre mouth sex.

Anyway, the point is I'm thinking about hot gluing the Unlucky Hat to my friend's head. IT'S NOT LIKE HE FUCKING NEEDS IT, GEEZE. The only problem with being a wingman of my caliber is that it's like a natural wonder. All of my energies go into making everyone else look good, but I can never use my powers for personal gain. I'm like Superman in the Fortress of Solitude. You know how it feels in the Fortress of Solitude? Solitary. You know what games we play? Solitaire. Because it's just me.

On the other hand if Superman were to meet a nice girl, I fall in the camp that believes he would in fact rip her to shreds mid-climax without the aid of red sunlamps, so you know, the analogy falls flat on that point. Any mishaps I encounter would not hypothetically be sunlamp-related.