Dammit Steph

This is long, but, in my opinion, worth it. Come on-you're not doing anything at work. Just read it.

My friend Steph is a planner. She plans social events for us. That's just who she is. It's what she does. Lately her mission in life is to get everyone she knows to love and embrace Cleveland. I already do, but it is still fun to see what she comes up with.

So tonight we go to this event where you pay $10 to go to a happy hour/party from 6pm till the bars close. You get free appetizers, and you can listen to a bunch of local bands. The whole point of going there, however, is to get people to tour these new town homes and lofts they are building. Since we are old, we are honestly more excited about touring new real estate than anything else. That is sad but true. Well for most of us-Drew is pretty excited about the free food.

We walk over to the building with an "Open House" sign in front of it and walk in. "Welcome to the tour!" they say, "Have a look around." And I have to say, it really is breathtaking. The sales center, that is. You can't tour the effing town homes or lofts because they aren't built yet. Oh but we can look at a miniature model of them. That is totally the same. We are pissed. This is false advertising. If I wasn't on my diet I would shove an entire plate of free cookies down my shirt, knock down the model and run out of there like a bat out of hell.

After that disaster we decide to go see a movie in the park. Downtown Cleveland has started this movie night. Once a month (in nice weather), we gather on Mall B (the nice grassy area), and they set up a big movie screen and everyone sits outside and watches the movie. It is awesome. Tonight's movie is "E.T."*.

Shortly into the movie a couple of homeless guys come and sit behind us. They are harmless, not bothering anybody-until Steph gets involved. Steph, with her very compassionate heart (except if your last name is Bush), turns to me and says, "Hey-I'm going to give them some of our food." I agree. I mean who is against giving food to the hungry? Not me.

Seeing that there are two of them, she decides to go with the 2 pack of cupcakes (she's really good at math). It's a solid choice, but the homeless guy she hands it to is not impressed.

"What is that!? I don't want that!! I didn't ask you for anything!!!" Steph, knowing that this could be a possible outcome, says, "Okay. That's fine. I was just offering."

A couple minutes later we hear, "Hey! Hey! That was very nice of you. I do appreciate it. But I have to work out." Then he starts working out. I should mention that "working out" in this case means laying on your back and lifting your legs so over your head so that your chin is touching your chest and you talk funny. Yes-we all did this same exercise…when we were 8.

The whole time he is "working out", he's talking gibberish. I have no idea what he's saying, but it's fine. It's around this time that we start to realize that this guy is totally shitfaced. Five minutes later, fresh from his workout, he starts his Catwomanlike crawl on the ground toward Christy.

Christy-who is tall, blonde, gorgeous and attracts a lot of weirdos-is lying on her back on the ground. Homeless guy lays down right next to her-roughly 2 inches away. Then he begins throwing out his A-game:

HG: "I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Do you believe in this stuff?"
Christy: "No it's just a movie."
HG: "Yeah but do you think it could happen? You Ohio people are crazy. I'm from Pennsylvania."

This exact conversation goes on for a good 2-3 minutes even though it feels like an entire lifetime has passed. He is really uncomfortably close to her, and finally Diane yells at her boyfriend, Drew (the only guy there), "Drew! Go lay on top of Christy!!" He does (and without much hesitation, I must say).

I decide we need reinforcements so I go tell the security people that there is a crazy drunk homeless guy creeping out my friend and invading her personal space. HG sees me talking to them, and it's enough to scare him off so he packs up and leaves. But not without leaving behind his razor and shaving cream. He is like the homeless Cinderella.

I will take this razor and shaving cream to every homeless person in Cleveland, and when I find the one on whose face it fits, I will ask him what brought him here to Cleveland from Pittsburgh because, personally, I am having trouble getting people to stay here.

Steph, your heart was in the right place, but goddammit get the weirdos away from us!

*"E.T." was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. I was 4, and I cried—this is no exaggeration—for 2 years after I saw it. I would go to sleep at night and wake up crying because "Elliot and ET are never going to see each other again!!" This must have been a fun period of time for my parents. But then they bought us the E.T. record as narrated by Michael Jackson. We listened to it every night for a year and cried every night for a year. Also my sister had this poster on her wall. I may or may not have cried again tonight. Well come on-I'm not made of stone!!!