Pick Up Fail

Boy: Skinny tie, expensive jeans, good hair. Snide confidence all over his boyishly good looking face. Gray hound’s tooth overcoat, which is quite fetching. Metro, but obviously not a native. Standing against the door ogling a girl.

Girl: Hot and bookish. Librarian chic glasses, pencil skirt, black kitten heals. Chocolate brown hair in a neat bob. NYC government issued red pea coat open just enough to show a low cut v-neck sweater and a hint of marvelous cleavage. She is sitting down, deep into a trade paperback.

He is formulating a plan in his head. You can see him working it out and in his mind it is flawless. He makes his way over to her, bumping into a few people as the train starts and stops. He hovers over her, expecting her to look up, but she doesn’t.

He bends down, so this his head is at her head level. She doesn’t notice. He then looked down and tries to see what book she is reading. He can’t see it from his angle so (and kids, this is where the big mistake was made) he pushes the book up a little with his finger.

The girl is started by the popping of her personal space bubble and yells “What the fuck!”

The person next to her is also frightened and spills her coffee the guy next to her, who jumps up and yells “Oh, fucking come on!”

The delicate ecosystem of the subway car is thrown into chaos.

Everyone looks at the guy who caused all the the problem and he stutters “I-um-uh just wanted to-um see what book she was reading. Sorry.”

Just as she is going to reply the train stopped at 42nd and everyone got off, leaving the guy standing confused as new people entered the train and pushed him around.

The book was The Red Tent.