A kiss is but a kiss

I have my long standing belief that I won't go out with a girl who's desperate enough to date me. People are very quick to say that it's rubbish, and every once in a while, I try to do the same thing. You're not that bad, you're just depressed, etc., but then real occurrences quickly block out those sporadic synapses of self confidence.

Take New Years' Eve for an e.g. As a group, we all decided that we were going to go to Tiberius, find a bar, and celebrate. Unfortunately B'nei Akiva interceded, and we would receive an unforetold punishment. They said that we had to go to Sefad. Sefad is one of the most religious cities in Israel, and we had already been there too many times. But, due a great deal to the fact that we had been kidnapped that morning, we negotiated it out, and it was decided that we would go to Sefad, by ourselves, they'd pay for the ride, and the dinner, and we only had to take our Madricha. Fine.

So, we go to this restaurant, the only place that's open on a late December 31st, and we order. Everybody has a beer, I don't drink beer. Don't really like the taste. To mark the occasion, I ordered champagne.

So, we sat down at the table, and the Mexicans introduced their custom. It involves taking I don't remember how many jelly beans, and eating one every five seconds, making a wish on each one, until the ball drops.

I have a small custom of my own. People seem to make fun of it a lot, but I like the idea of kissing the stranger at midnight. OK, sue me.

The problem was that this being Sefad, the people in the restaurant that were there were either extremely religious, or already making out, and in either case, I would have been seriously misinterpreted.

While figuring out what to do, the waiter came over to me, and told me they were out of champagne. "OK, can I have a shot of anything?"

"Sorry, we didn't renew the stock lately."

"Irish coffee?"

"Sorry."

"German Coffee?"

"Out."

"Liqueur?"

"Nope."

"OK...Cider?"

"Coming up."

"Fine."

Then I tried to explain my custom to the group, maybe one of the girls would comply. "Look, this is gonna sound strange, but could one of you just give me one kiss on the lips? It doesn't mean anything. Elena?"

"Que?"

So, one of the other Mexicans explained it to her.

"It's his custom."

"Well," she says to me, "it's our custom, that the person on your left gives you ten dollars."

"Look, I really don't care about the meaning of this," I said taking out a ten dollar bill, "it's just the custom." She refused. I suppose there wouldn't really have been a graceful way of getting out of that one. I skipped Yael; she was sitting next to her boyfriend.

"Chaya?"

"No."

"Sharon?"

"Sorry."

"Excuse me sir, here's your cider."

"Thank you...He just gave me a can of apple juice..."

"Oh, well tell him you want Out Cider."

"OK. Sir, could I change this to Out Cider?"

"That costs more."

"That's fine."

"So, Catrina, would you..."

"No."

"ok...Rayna...would you..."

"No."

"Sir, we're out of outsider."

"I see. Look, do you have anything alcoholic whatsoever, except for beer?"

"No."

A slightly groaned, "OK, just give me a pizza then, please."

We get to the last girl. The other ones didn't throw up in my face, but they did literally turn up their noses. Of course it hurt a bit. "Leeza, I don't suppose you..."

"Sure," she said with a half grin. She felt guilty, I guess.

But whenever another guy tells me that I'm just exaggerating my self deprecation, or whenever I think that maybe I'm wrong, I can just look at the truth.

Get me outa here!!!

Wanna read the last one?

Wanna read the next one?

Take me back to the list

---

Michael Kadish

"We'll jump off that bridge when we come to it." - City Slickers

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws