At any rate, this is one of the more exciting stories about my dating life. Sell 9/10ths of your seat.
It was a cold enough September Thursday when I met KP. My friend was making out with her friend, and we looked at them, looked at each other, laughed. We were at a bar that was immediately adjacent to a 24 hour golden griddle. When it was time to wrap up and leave, we invited the girls for 3am chocolate chip pancakes.
"Order us some, we'll be there in a minute" we were told.
Expressing disbelief in her sincerity, we exchanged numbers and I told her I would call her in 20 when she didn't show up. Twenty minutes later, I left her a voicemail that I vaguely recall mentioned how she seemed smart enough to want to ever talk to me again. I hung up without saying goodbye.
For the next four days we were in a marathon text conversation. Nothing of consequence, but we agreed to meet up the next Wednesday to get Thai food or Vietnamese food. Not terribly important.
After food we hit up a bar in the area and drank more than we should have, but all was well. En route to transit, we jumped a fence and played around in a preschool playground. Fastforward a few minutes and I noticed some UHAUL trucks in a parking lot. We climbed onto the cube, where KP noticed a fire escape on the back of a nearby building. Emboldened by alcohol, we resolved to climb. As we got off the UHAUL, she slipped and fell and bailed hard on her ass. While this should have been an omen, she left her purse on the ground to be rifled through by a raccoon that ate her lip balm, and we made our move on the structure.
We scaled a small wooden fence, and began our ascent of the fire escape, making use of equal parts fire escape and tin roof of fire escape. Not the most challenging of climbs, but still a task for the inebriated.
Atop the roof, the view was awesome and the wind was unchecked. For no particular reason, the roof also had puddles. We hurdled some puddles (steeplechase?), and sat atop what I'm going to assume were vents and or ducts.
Before we headed down, I called her phone to ensure that she hadn't dropped it on the roof. Like a true gentleman, I assured her that if she had forgotten it up here it is gone because I am not coming back for it. I heard no ring, we headed down. Halfway down, there was a section that was barred off and was the most difficult part of both the up and the down. I began to head down while she declared, "That's too hard for me, I'll find another way". In true movie timing and fashion, as soon as this was known to the world, the section of tin roof she was standing on gave way and she fell ten feet to the iron fire escape below.
KP assured me she was not dead, and was adamant that though she had hit her head, there was no reason for concern. Not being a doctor, and not being the one injured, I agreed to her request that I prop her head up while she lay there and shrugged off a second serious bail. The remainder of the descent was uneventful, though realistically climbing up and down a fire escape ought not have been eventful in the first place.
Having found her purse contents strewn about the parking lot, she gathered her personal effects as someone leaned out a window of the building and shouted. We left, and blended in to the hundreds, nay, thousands of others that were drunk on a side street at 4am on a Thursday.
KP could not find her phone. We headed home to sleep away the booze and deal with the morning later in the morning.
--Epilogue--
KP had lost her phone in the playground. It was returned to her, in time. Also, she had a fairly large gouge in the back of her head. As her head was in my lap, she bled onto my jeans. The bloodstain is there to this day, because I lack the laundry supplies and the interest in the work to get it out.
KP has talked to me perhaps twice since then. I had fun, and it was certainly a memorable time. Perhaps the excess of alcohol and the head trauma caused it to be not memorable for her, though I stand by my statement that she seems smart enough to ever talk to me again. Time will tell.
Also, this is not her.
