Staring Guy: No Water Refill Is Worth This

Jennifer is getting married.

So what do you do when your friend is getting married? You have a bachelorette dealie.

I have had a traumatic experience at a bachelorette party before. And therefore, I avoid them like the plague. But Becky and I wanted to do something special for Jen, and that became a bachelorette party. Minus the food shaped like body parts, because eww.

Also, minus other traumatic things.

Instead, we went to dinner.

We sat down at the restaurant, the waitress brought us menus and took our drink orders. That was when I noticed the water-guy.

He was standing by this wall partition thing, kind of like a pillar, but not round. And every once and a while, he would lean his head out from around the pillar, and stare.

I have told you about the freaks and weirdos I attract.

It's true. I attract the strangest people. If a crowd of men were assembled in the town square (if we had a town square), and I were brought before them, and the men were asked to stand on one side of the square if they found me attractive or on the other if they found me repugnant, the vast majority of normal guys would go to the repugnant side and the men left over would be the ones with criminal records (we're talking felonies here), those on watch lists, the psychopaths, and the crazies. Sure, there would be some normal guys on that side, too, but when they noticed that the other men around them were foaming at the mouth and sharpening switchblades, they would scuttle over to the other side of the square, leaving me with prospective boyfriends that were destined to grace the most-wanted list.

At first, I ignored Staring Guy. He was pale, in his late teens with dark hair and an earring. The earring alone was a warning, because it was a big faux-diamond, which made me think that Staring Guy, while off duty, liked to wear huge, over-sized pants belted just above the knee and some kind of cap tilted to the back or side. He was a gangsta-wannabe.

But Staring Guy kept darting back out, staring, and giving me this weird look.

Finally, Becky and Jen noticed my expression, and they asked me what was going on. When I explained, Jen (who was next to me in the booth) started watching where Staring Guy had first appeared. When he looked around the pillar again, she stared back at him with her angry teacher-stare*.

"I cannot tell if he is watching our water glasses to see when he should refill them, or if he finds us attractive," I said.

"I bet it's the water," Jen replied.

"Maybe we shouldn't stare back," I continued. "You never know. This could be my future husband."

And he just kept staring. He began an elaborate technique of circling the dining area, watching us--or was it me?--as he walked around the room, ducking for cover behind walls and booths when he felt his staring was becoming obvious to us.

He had even put the water down. There was no water pitcher anymore. Only staring.

Eventually, when another guy came over to refill Jen's tea, she told him, "You know the guy with the earring? He is being creepy. He keeps staring. It's freaking us out. You need to tell him to stop."

This was not effective.

Staring Guy kept it up through our whole meal, and when we'd finished eating, he returned to our table three separate times to get plates. He would take a plate, leave watch us for a while, come back, take a salad plate, go away, watch, then return for another. He was taking, like, one plate at a time. You know how people busing tables can carry every plate from a table on one arm? Or at least most of them? This guy did not even attempt it. He was a one-plate-at-a-time kind of person. Because it gave him a better opportunity to BE CREEPY.

I watched on the way out to the car. He didn't write down Jen's license plate number. So she is safe.

But seriously. This is why people carry mace. So psychotic busboys do not slash your tires, throw you in the back of their van, drive you out into the woods, and bolt your ankle to a chain hooked to the floor so they can watch you through a tiny window built into the wall until you eventually starve and die. This is why the mace.

Source: mycakespot.blogspot.ca via Shannon on Pinterest

Maybe this would be a good idea for my birthday? Or a taser, like Darcy has in Thor. Nothing says "Happy 28th" like self-defense-related presents**.

* You do not mess with the teacher-stare.

** Or stuff with The Avengers on it. Like my new folder. And my new markers. And my new pencils. And my shirt. I love The Avengers.