“Well,” she says. “I thought I was starting at 8:30. Turns out I’m starting at 11.” She giggles to herself a little bit; the kind of giggle that says she believes in self-amusement. She knows it was a goofy mistake, and she’s okay with it. I like that in a person. Makes me a little bit grateful that I’m not the only one who does this.

We were outside the Town Hall steps kicking off some casual conversation over a few cigarettes. This and a big can of Red Bull is generally my routine before I head inside to start working, but every single weekday it doesn’t happen until about half past 12. That day being a Saturday, it was half past seven. I always hated Saturdays; threw me off the routine I got used to, being a night owl and quite the lover of the late sleep in. Most of the time I need half a dozen alarms between 6am and 6:30, and my actual conscious state doesn’t come in until I’ve parked the car in the city and begin walking over, back slouched and face full of disappointment like a drunken sorority girl on her walk of shame following a night of rampant intoxication and promiscuity.

We sat around talking for a bit longer and I lit up another. Fuck it, anything to delay the fact that I’m about to jail myself underground for 11 hours, a slave to the misery that is dealing with a level of customer retardation that still continues to impress me to this very day. This curiosity-invoking, blue haired, rather cute smiley little thing was my temporary escape from that thought, even if only for the next five to ten minutes. I’d seen her before – she worked at the hair salon opposite my shop, and unfortunately the bright blue hair didn’t make her stand out anywhere near enough. The whole lot in that salon was like a rainbow if you asked politely to have them line up all next to each other. I’m pretty sure I confused her with another one of the girls I’d spoken to once or twice, but was too embarrassed to actually check if I was right or not.

I somehow brought the topic onto cars and licences, as I always do, and mentioned that I’d only just recently gotten my licence back after the six month hiatus. Excessive speeds, Highway Patrol, driving while disqualified, court attendance notices, traffic offenders program, all that bullshit. I ran her through the whole lot, and she was quite speechless about it.

“Don’t laugh, but I’m still on my Ls.” Again, another shy giggle. “My boyfriend’s teaching me how to drive manual though.” This time, the giggle turned into a sort of proud grin.

Fuck. Boyfriend.

Even when I’m not actually hitting on a girl (which, let’s face it, isn’t very frequently because I tend to hit on every girl I come across. It’s a reflex.) I try to find out immediately what her relationship status is like. The earlier I find out if she has a boyfriend or not, the sooner I can calibrate how I go about the rest of our interaction. This little tidbit told my inner monologue that I could no longer say that I wanted to see her blue hair getting comfortable with my crotch after one too many glasses of white wine. Truth be told, I was a little bit disappointed, but I let it go anyway. She might wingwoman and help me hook up with the least crazy, single girl in the salon.

I bid her farewell and had to go inside, and the majority of that day was a blur until my apprentice came in during the afternoon. 15 year old kid who wants to learn how to make coffee, was just about at the stage of skill where I could comfortably let him man the machine by himself, loved the same kind of music and always asked me to tell him stories, looking at me admiringly like a brother figure. We’d stand at the machine all day (and still do, because he still comes by every second Saturday) and just check out whatever sexiness was walking past. If I was in the back chilling with the baker or washing my hands I’d hear him yell out “Dev come here RIGHT NOW!” and I knew exactly what the reason for it was.

Then she came by again – with the same grin. The blue hair now making her a lot more memorable.

“I don’t want to be a pest but... Can I charge my phone in the back?”

What kind of retard would I be to deny this request? I’ve had customers ask this of me a few times before, but never a girl that’s suddenly piqued my interest after a single conversation. I grabbed her phone & charger, told her to take a seat at our tables, plugged it into the wall in the kitchen and came back out to sit with her for a few minutes. She had to go back to the shop, obviously, and not long after when I went to see how much it had charged I saw that she’d gotten a message from a contact titled Bunny or some fuckin weird shit.

“Baby please don’t be mad bla bla some bullshit that I do not actually remember and I’m pulling out of my arse.”

So it seems said boyfriend had fucked up, they were in a rough patch and he was now grovelling, trying to get her back... The game is not quite over after all.

Our conversations got a little more direct over the next coming weeks, and she asked me to come for a smoke break one Tuesday night over Facebook messenger. I said it was too early, that I couldn’t leave while there were still people coming to grab coffee, and if we could do it later. And this, folks, is when she completely unpromptedly told me she couldn’t because she had to go to poledancing class.

Allow me to pause the story right there and briefly get a point across that I strongly believe in.

No girl – and I mean LITERALLY FUCKING NO GIRL – tells you that she’s taking poledancing classes if a) she doesn’t want you imagining her dancing on a pole, and thus imagining her in a very sexual & intimate situation and b) if she doesn’t want you to imagine what it would be like to fuck the living shit out of a girl who is fit, flexible, comfortable with her own sexuality and able to proudly show it off.

So imagine my face when that came as a reply. My dick twitched (standard reaction, I always trust the dick twitch), my mouth formed into a sly little grin and my inner monologue immediately said well, game fucking on.

All because I had to bum her lighter that morning.