The Sky Screamer

Ron Howard is in town. Yup, little Richie Cunningham is here in the TDot. Some of my friends and I went to attend a screening of his latest film, "The Missing" and see him speak tonight. Unfortunately, the event was mismanaged and those of us on the waiting list ended up shivering in the cold night air.

There was a good sixty or so people milling about and attempting to keep warm. And like the typical Torontonians that we are, we didn't complain directly to the management staff. We just raged quietly to ourselves about how this whole situation was "unacceptable" and "not at all what we expected". Way to put your foot down, people! Then again, I am not only a member of the Self-Mutterers Club of Toronto, I am also the President. I just stood there freezing my ass off and silently shook my fist into the air.

As aforementioned fist-shaking was happening, I noticed a strangely-familiar looking guy nearby. It quickly occurred to me that I had worked with that guy over 10 years ago, but I just couldn't place his name. D... D... it was a name that started with "D"? I couldn't remember what though. Now, if you're a normal person, you would go up to that guy and say something like: "Hey, you look kind of familiar. Didn't we work together a long time ago? Hi. My name is Reese." Unfortunately, my brain is not wired in the "normal" way.

Here's what I did instead. I turned my head to the side, facing away from him, and calmly yelled upwards into the night sky, "DAVE!" Subtly, I glanced around. Hmmm. No reaction. So I decided to give it another go. "DONALD!", I screamed to the clouds. Pause. Nope, nothing. Finally, I yelled to the moon, "DOUG!" THAT got his attention. My friends thought I had suddenly become insane. They had no clue what I was attempting to do. One even said to me aloud, "Are you trying to figure out God's name or something?!?". I laughed and then realized that "Doug" was looking over at me smiling a huge grin. Oh crap. That IS him. And he KNOWS I know it's him. Maybe if I pretend that I don't see him, he won't notice me hiding here. Of course, there is that silly business of me yelling his name out loud. Fuck. I'm in hell.

Moments later he came over and started talking to me. I feigned surprise and ignorance. Or shall I say, I attempted to feign ignorance, for I was genuinely surprised that this whole thing was happening to me. Silly, silly Reese. He asked me how I was doing and we small-talked for a bit. I pretended to not know his name. Yeah, like how transparent and retarded is that? The big shocker was that he mentioned he still had my number from back then. Weird. In those days, I figured myself as a hot shit networker and used to whore my business card all over town. Yes, I was a "calling card slut". Apparently, he kept it handy for 10 friggin' years. I also remembered just how stupid I was 10 years ago, and I was insane enough to have flirted with him back then. From what I recall, he was a very odd guy. I also recall that I was a girl who really liked odd guys. Damn.

Anyhow, my friends and I had had enough of waiting for the theatre to let us inside, so we decided to bail on Ronny Howard. (I'd have to make it up to him some other time.) Thankfully, it also gave me an opportunity to make a quick departure from further talking with "Doug". I talked long enough with him to discover that 1) he's still very creepy/odd; and 2) I no longer have a thing for those types of guys. So I managed to extricate myself from experiencing any further awkward moments.

So the big lesson that I learned today: Don't yell people's names into the sky. And don't pretend that you didn't do it either. People have an amazing facility for noticing such bizarre behaviour. The amusing thing is... based on tonight's events.... I think I won in the "who's more imbalanced" contest.

Oh God... I hope he doesn't follow up and actually call me. Nothing is crazier than a guy who likes crazy girls, right?