The String Cheese Incident

(As in actual string cheese, not the band.)

THE SETUP

I’ve always been a bit of an outlier, but my friends like and accept me anyway, so I tend to just roll with it because, well, I’m me. A lot of my uniqueness stems from the random stuff that happens to me. Theoretically, it could happen to anyone, but it doesn’t…it happens to me.

For instance, the other day, I was going on my first first date in a couple of years with someone I found interesting. (No pressure.) I was a little nervous and food wasn’t my friend, but I knew I needed to eat something. So, I grabbed a string cheese at Starbucks that I intended to eat after drinking my short, triple-dry cappuccino. Instead, I spilled that on the driver’s seat of my car as I was sitting in it, and forgot about the string cheese, because looking like I sharted myself was a rather emergent situation.

Later that evening, after the cappuccino crisis was averted, I went to meet my date and arrived early. So I decided to pop into Sephora because it was next door to the restaurant and gigantic. The second I walked through the door, I saw that they had Tom Ford sample perfumes. Usually you can’t even buy Tom Ford in Sephora stores, never mind try it, so I was giddy.

THE SITUATION

In my euphoric state, I realized that they had his new (!!!), just-released “Fucking Fabulous” fragrance and made a valiant attempt to use it, because who doesn’t want to be fucking fabulous on a first date? I say “attempt” though, because what actually happened was that the nozzle malfunctioned. At the exact moment the cute gay Sephora guy walked over and said, “Hi Gorgeous, anything I can help you with?” while batting his lashes, I proceeded to pour $200 perfume all over myself. I blushed <died> and said, “Nah, I got this.”

He laughed and told me I was doing just fine, no big deal. (Phew.) After chatting for a minute, I remembered it had been days since I’d seen my favorite NARS lip pencil. He led me to the NARS section and a girl named McKenzie, who didn’t flinch when I said, “I think I lost my Sex Machine.” (Yes, that’s a real a lip color.) She started to hand me one, and I said, “Wait, lemme make sure I didn’t stash it in my wallet.”

So I opened my wallet and pulled out…a warm, floppy string cheese. McKenzie looked at me in that way someone who’s questioning whether you should be out without a chaperone would, and then…laughed. We both did. When I offered it to her and said, “Snack?” she laughed even harder and said, “Okay, what the hell?!” So I explained and tossed the string cheese in the trash. (Seriously…this is on camera somewhere.) We chatted about life and were BFF’s by the time I left feeling calm and smelling amazing. Because…Sephora.

THE END

And that, boys and girls, was a total of 15 minutes of one day in my life. The date, by the way, went fine, but I said “Nah” to a second one. I probably won’t smell as good on my next one, which, um, might be a while, but I’ll be sure to eat breakfast at home just to be safe.