"It's too cold for shorts"

Scarves should not be necessary in May. Luke was dreading the thought of walking to the bus stop wearing his winter pea coat and his favorite white and black striped scarf. Taking the bus alone was degrading enough for Luke, being fifteen years old in high school and showing up to school on the bus will not help his chances with Cheryl Petting. 

Cheryl is two years older then Luke, but since he was bumped ahead to 12th grade, he assumes being rather intelligent increases his chances to ever talking to her. However she's clearly "studying" with Kyle Houthe, the high school badass with rich parents, own car, and the likeability of James Franco from Freaks and Geeks. Luke never had a chance, and taking the bus doesn't affect whether or not he'll have the chance to talk to Cheryl.

On this particular day in May, Luke was forced to wear a scarf and his pea coat while he waited for the bus. It was unusual weather; however, living in Michigan he should know better. Fuck it, Luke thought, he's rolling the dice and only going to rock a hoodie and scarf. He opened the door to his house and immediately regretted his decision and jetted out the door anyway. 

While he was shivering on his way to the bus stop, he couldn't help but think of Cheryl. He thought she was perfect, the cutest face. She goes for the whole, "Look at me, I don't wear make-up yet I'm still hotter than you look." Luke loves that, he can't help. Hell, most of the guys at his school have inappropriate thoughts about her. Luke goes mad just thinking about her--the ridiculous chuckle she produces out of her perfect mouth showing her perfect teeth--she's pure fucking perfection. 

All of Luke's friends tell him that he needs to give up all hope on ever having any sort of short interaction with her. Luke wasn't a horrible looking kid. He was only a few weeks away from his 16th birthday, but most people assumed he was much older, which is due to his mature personality. He carries himself in a manner unlike most regular high schoolers. Luke reads books outside of school, hangs out at coffee shops, and is the President of the Elk River Rapids Young Democrats. His intellect is at the level of a college student, and resembles a young John Kennedy, but more like what a cousin of John Kennedy would look like. 

Luke had his own "little fan club." Girls that were mainly older then him. None of them mattered, he only wanted Cheryl Petting. Standing at the bus stop drinking his black, french-roasted coffee Luke went over his daily imaginary conversation with Cheryl. It always went something like this:

"Hi Cheryl! My name is Luke, we've had a few classes together but we never actually met."

"LUKE! Of course I know you! You sat right behind me in Biology last year. I wanted to talk to you so many times, but I was always so nervous."

"Well, you know, my parents usually go to bed early. You could, uh, if you want, um, come over tonight? I mean if your not, like, busy with Kyle or something..."

"Oh me and Kyle are just friends, he helps me study. And I would love to come over tonight. You can help me study for anatomy." *Wink*

This conversation has never taken place, and Luke was hoping, praying, and begging to any God(s) that it would someday. He also had the tendency to get lost in his fantastical delusion that he would get a little too eager and it would show. Today waiting for bus while he was going over different "scenarios" a girl was approaching the same bus stop. Luke was caught off guard because normally he was the only waiting for the bus at 7:15 a.m. This particular girl happened to be none other then the star of Luke's fantasy, Cheryl Petting.

Luke immediately became really red when she walked up and stood about two feet from him. Luckily for Luke, he was standing in front of Cheryl and she couldn't see what he was trying to hide from her. It took him a solid thirty seconds to calm down, and he turned his head to notice that she didn't look happy. He considered the idea that maybe she was embarrassed that she had to take the bus, but he grew the courage to speak to her for the first time.

Luke managed to mumble, "Fucked up weather, huh?"

"Hmm, did you say something."

"Oh, just that the average temperature this time of May is usually 65.8 degrees and today it's 35 degrees," replied Luke, and thought he sounded too smart including the exact average temperature.

"Yeah, it's pretty shitty," she said rather quietly. Luke still sensed that something was wrong and thought maybe he should say something funny.

"It totally is, but you know there will still be some douche that wears shorts today just because it's May. I mean no one thinks the guy that wears shorts is a badass, he's just an idiot." 

She smiled and said, "Yeah. You're right on that."

Luke was so elated that he made her smile that he didn't know the bus just pulled up and was caught off guard so fumbled to collect his bus fare. He got an empty seat and tried looking for Cheryl and noticed she was behind him looking out of the window, not pleased at all. Luke thought about moving back to her empty seat next to her. He didn't really have a non-weird way to go about it. He couldn't just end up sitting next to her since they have been on the bus for a few minutes now and was already on its way to the next stop. He thought about making a scene and yelling that there was shit on the seat and he needed to move, but he didn't want to implicate himself as having sat in shit. As he was going over different ways to approach this problem they arrived to school and he missed his opportunity.

Luke waited for Cheryl to get ahead of him so he could get of the bus behind her. He was hoping that he would get the chance to ask her out to coffee, or even talk about weather again. Luke was desperate and thought the short bus stop conversation went well. She got of the bus and as he was stepping off he noticed the douche wearing shorts. This was perfect! What better way to have another conversation with Cheryl than to make fun of the idiot wearing shorts. Just as he was about to tap on her shoulder and say something, she said:

"Kyle! Over here!" 

As she said this the kid wearing the shorts turned and wave to her. To Luke's disgust, it was Kyle. Fucking Kyle. Of all the people to wear shorts on a cold spring day, which is clearly jeans weather, Kyle would be the douche to do it. Luke noticed that they were talking and she pointed at his lack of pants and he just put his hands up motioning, "I don't know." Cheryl just laughed, and it wasn't laughter towards Kyle, it was genuine laughter. 

Luke couldn't understand. He thought they had one thing in common, hatred to shorts wearing douchebags in cold weather. Luke didn't even finish his coffee but tossed it away and walked toward school. His young heart being trampled upon by his high school crush flirting with James Franco look-a-like Kyle was too much for him to handle this day, and he made one of the worst decisions of his youthful life. He vowed to not watch a James Franco movie again because of Kyle Houthe and his fucking shorts.

"The Bathroom Conundrum"

Bob has been having a mediocre evening following his mediocre work day at his mediocre job. The only thing he can hope for anymore is mediocre sex from let's say a mediocre girl. Mediocre defines Bob's life. But tonight he's having a beer at his favorite watering hole, and by favorite it's the place where his friends always want to go. And of course Bob is fifteen minutes early, so instead of sitting at a table alone by himself he orders a beer at the bar.

He doesn't want to look too poor to the moderately cute bartender who has a comparable face to the likes of Marilyn Monroe with Steve Buscemi eyes. He could have mediocre sex with her, but he won't try, he'll order his lager and wait for his friends.

Bob doesn't like to wait. He's sitting at the bar, which at this point is relatively empty on an early Friday night, and to pass the time he's scrolling through apps on his iPhone. Sadly, the most exciting part of Bob's life is having an iPhone even though 6/10 people he knows has one, he still feels privileged and "hip."

The fifteen minutes has passed and Bob has been trying to kill by stealing awkward glances at the Buscemi eyed, Marilyn Monroe bartender while finished his lager. Bob is the kind of guy who normally won't drink excessively so he double thinks about ordering a second beer. He ponders the idea and comes to the conclusion that if he orders the beer he will at least be able to have an eleven second conversation with the bartender.

He signals her down with a classic finger raise: "If it's no trouble to you, could I have another lager, I mean beer?"

The Buscemi eyed waitressed replied annoyed: "Uh, yeah. You had...?"

"Oh, just the Riptide's Fancy Lancy Prancer Lager. It's pretty good. I recommend it if you haven't had it."

"Well, normally only gay dudes order it because of the name, but that will be 4 bucks."

"Oh, good thing I'm not gay" Bob said with a lame half-hearted laugh to not come off homophobic or too weird. She thought he was weird, but came back with his beer and didn't buy into Bob's sincere smile.

What was Bob to do? Ten more minutes passed and his friends still haven't showed up. Maybe Steve and Zac were stuck in traffic? Impossible. Bob knew they walked to the bar, only three blocks away. How pathetic was this, his only friends stand him up on a friday night.

Fuck this, Bob thought. He had it. He finished the rest of his beer, thought about getting the weird eyed bartender's attention to order another but he better use the bathroom first. This particular bar was not kind to men. It had no stall toilet, so you couldn't poop, only stand in the trough style toilet and pee. The idea of whipping your dick out and pissing into a long tub was not something Bob wanted to do.

He rushed to the bathroom, the whole time thinking, praying, hoping, etc that no one would be in there. Alas! He was in great luck! He walked to the end of the trough, approached it, look at disgust and unzipped. Just as he thought things were about to change for him, the door opened. Bob couldn't back out now. His only hope was the guy was kind enough to no come too close. The overweight man untucked his stained white tee, whipped his nose with his finger and gracefully approached a little closer to Bob.

There was no way Bob was going to be able to piss at this point. The overweight man was only 1.5 feet away when the trough was 6 feet long. Bob couldn't understand why he was so close. Does he want to look at Bob's penis? Does he just not care about where he pisses like Bob does? Who knows?! Bob needs his space to pee and this man was making it any easier. While Bob just stood in place pretending to pee, the man was clearly having no problem. Bob could hear the stream of pee hit the porcelain. There was nothing else for Bob to do but to pretend he pissed, zip up, and go wash his hands.

Coincidentally the bigger man finished peeing just as Bob "finished." Bob gave the man a polite head nod not expecting anything in reply but the man said:

"Good evening little guy" in a really high pitched voice that didn't match what he looked like.

"Ah, yes it is a nice evening" Bob said rather surprised.

"I couldn't help but notice you were drinking Riptide's Fancy Lancey Prancer Lager. It is one of my ABSOLUTE favs!"

Immediately Bob rememebered what Steve Buscemi eyed waitress said Well, normally only gay dudes order it because of the name, but that will be 4 bucks." How could this be? Was this man really hitting on Bob in the bathroom? Sure, Bob dresses nice, he likes to read GQ and keeps good care of his body, but he doesn't come off as gay.

Bob couldn't only think of one thing to say: "Oh sorry, I'm not gay. I hope I didn't give you the wrong impression. I didn't really know gay guys drank that beer."

The man was disgusted by the way Bob said that. He was trying to hit on Bob, just making small talk in the bathroom. Yet he said: "Oh sure, just because you dress nice doesn't mean I want to suck you off. Fucking ignorance."

"Uh, um, yeah..." and Bob just walked out the bathroom too quickly and almost walked into the one bartender he wished to avoid, "Buscemi eyes." He quickly mumbled a sorry and saw that his friends made it. They laughed Bob telling him he almost ran over that bartender and proceeded to verbally make fun of the waitress for being so peculiar. Bob could never tell them that he thought she was somehow attractive to him. And before he could forget the bathroom experience, Zac said:

"How was the bathroom? You were in there for awhile? You didn't go gay on us and suck of some dude?"

"Oh, ha. Ha. Yeah, right..."

Bob really hates his friends almost as much as he hates using public bathrooms.