Sunday School: Screw You, Reproductive Urges

“There she is!” my mother says when I walk through the door of the restaurant.

“It’s 11:59,” I say. My aunt is going to meet us for lunch at noon. I sit down and pull out the hat I’m working on.

“One more,” Mom informs the boy behind the counter. “She should be here any minute.”

I glance up at him, amused by her unflagging extroversion and looking to share the joke. He has a line of Greek tattooed on the inside of his right forearm that catches my eye. Christian or classicist? I wonder. It’s a game I don’t get to play very often; there’s not a whole lot of Ionic script on bodies around here. I see Latin tattoos a lot more often, but they’re usually just a word or two, and I can read Latin anyway so it’s not as much of a challenge.

He’s not looking at me when my gaze finally makes it to his face, so he doesn’t get to see the look on my face shift from speculative to oh when I notice his snakebites and gauged ears. Awesome, I think, and I go back to looking at his tattoo, trying to pick out a familiar word so I won’t look like a dummy if I ask him about it. (Also, I need to definitively rule out “Christian” before I start a conversation. Junior New Testament scholars are excruciating to talk to, in my experience.)

“Can I get you anything while you wait?” he asks.

“I’d love an iced tea,” Mom says. “Honey, could you–?”

“Yeah, of course,” I say, shaking off my reverie. The boy hands me two cups, and I smile as I take them from him. “Thanks, darlin’.”

I am appalled at myself as I walk across the restaurant to the fountain. I’m not much of a flirt in general, mostly because I’m horrible at it, but at least I usually manage to direct it at someone of the right gender. And I have to be way, way drunker than I am to direct it at people in the service industry who are just trying to do their jobs.

On the other hand, my general ineptitude with the art form probably means that he didn’t realize I was flirting with him in the first place. It’s some small comfort, I guess, but I feel weird about it. Weirder still about the way I can’t stop watching his hands. He’s definitely the type that I would have gone for, when I would have gone for that type.

My aunt arrives and we place our orders. I sit down with my tea and my knitting and tell myself that I didn’t choose the table just so I could watch the boy at the counter. I’m listening with half an ear as my mother and my aunt talk–they haven’t seen one another in a couple of months, so they have a lot to catch up on. I don’t usually have much to contribute.

The boy walks past our table on the way to the kitchen, and I see that he has a Braille tattoo on his other arm. Fuck.

I pull out my phone to send a friend an SOS.

there is a dude at pei wei with a sweet-ass greek tattoo all up one forearm and i am going nuts trying to decide “classicist or christian”

As I finish telling her about the snakebites, it occurs to me to check the calendar. I sigh.

this text brought to you by rachel’s ovaries, which are totally into dick right now

She responds quickly.

I’m just trying to decide ‘nom’ or ‘om nom nom’

I’m pretty sure she’s laughing at me on the other end. That’s okay; I’m pretty sure I deserve it.

When I get home, I ping a straight dude friend of mine.

me: ovulation is the worst thing in the history of the world
M.: I didn’t need to know that

It’s the most sensible thing anyone’s said to me all day.

I miss being on the pill.

If you have a question for Sunday School, please send it in so Rachel doesn’t have to write up more odd anecdotes for columns.

Featured image from Flickr user ggnyc.