A Funny Thing (or two) Happened at Chick-Fil-a

A friend of mine from work absolutely loves chick-fil-a. She is obsessed with it. Whenever it is her turn to pick where we go to lunch, nine times out of ten, her choice is the Fil-a. This town is inundated with them, but she doesn't like the one that is closest to our office. (She is convinced that the employees are charging more than the other franchises and are pocketing the extra cash. But that's a story for a different day.)

Anyway, the one we frequent is sort of a hike from the office, so a trip to Chick-Fil-a is an outing of sorts. A couple of months ago, she asked if I wanted to go with her as we were leaving work. It was around 9:00pm and I was hungry, so I agreed. We go. We order. We eat. No big deal. It is closing as we are leaving and there is a young kid (probably 16 or 17) cleaning the door as we walk outside. When I am a couple of steps away he says, "Excuse me, do you know so-and-so?" I apologized and told him that I didn't. I took a few more steps towards my car, and because I have this bad habit of talking to strangers, I turned around and asked, "Why? Who is he?" His reply (oh so nonchalantly) was, "Oh. He's a friend of mine. You sort of look like his mom." I was stunned and could just barely manage to say, "Oh." (For those of you who don't know me - I am NOT old enough to have a teenage child.) Then this so-called friend from work of mine proceeds to burst out laughing and gives me grief non-stop for the next few weeks and shares this lovely tale with our fellow co-workers. I was pretty depressed about it for a while, but did I let that stop me from going back? No. Of course not.

So today I brought my lunch to work. Same friend was hungry and wanted to go to CFA. I said I would go along for the ride although I had already eaten. We go. We order. She eats. As we are eating, these two men sit down at a table a couple behind ours. I watch them sit and one of them catches my eye and looks at me strangely. I look long enough to see if I know him (I don't) and then continue my convo with work friend. She finishes and we go out to her car. As I am about to open the door I see this same guy out of the corner of my eye rushing towards us. (We are the only car on this side of the building. Friend later confesses that she thinks this guy is going to kill me.) There is then what seems like a really long period of time during which he is coming towards me but saying nothing. So I say hi. And then the weirdest thing happens. He says, (in a wonderful Caribbean accent) "Hi. I am Rob. I just wanted to let you know that you are distractingly beautiful." I manage to say, "Oh. Ok. Well, uh thanks." So then Rob asks if he gave me his number would I call him sometime. And so then, partially because I am an a-hole and not because he was unattractive (he wasn't) and partially because I was so thrown off guard by someone trying to pick me up at 3:00 in the afternoon in a fast food restaurant parking lot and partially because I find myself lately only into guys who are unavailable/not into me (I know, Slice, I need to give up on the Illini.) - yeah, well I told him no. Nicely, but still no. I told him he made my day. (For those of you who don't know me - I am NOT distractingly beautiful. Sometimes cute. Sometimes charming. Distractingly beautiful? Not so much.) And he left. And I left. And once again, friend from work laughed her ass off.

I am now convinced that there is a camera crew from some hidden camera show planted there and I am their target. That or this restaurant is part of some sort of twilight zone. Regardless, I think "distractingly beautiful" is the best line I have ever heard.