The Smoothest Pickup Line in the History of Recorded History

I was in a Buffalo Wild Wings in Columbus, OH, with Jen and John. Jen and I both had a couple of drinks in us, and this was good; the pain-numbing and muscle relaxing properties of alcohol would prove fortuitous that self-same night -- but that’s another story.

The conversation at the moment revolved around the nature of creepers and neckbeards, who constantly vexed Jen. Clearly, she needed the services of a Neckbeard Slayer, but such requests fell on deaf ears. See, in order to maintain the favor of Broseidon, God of the Brocean, James the Neckbeard Slayer was in a contest to see who could get the most phone numbers, so he could not answer Jen’s questions. However, since I self-identify as a creepy guy, my special insight allowed me to mansplain their behaviors.

“You’re overthinking things,” I told her. “Just go watch the monkeys at the zoo. They’ll teach you everything you’ll ever need to know about male behavior.”

“No, monkeys are way smarter because they don’t go around thinking that pickup lines can work,” said Jen.

“I once convinced a girl drive 40 miles [64.4 km] to my apartment -- alone -- after chatting online with her, one time, for 20 minutes -- because I know the smoothest pickup line of all time.”

“What?” said Jen and John.

*             *             *

“You have to meet this girl, she’s perfect for you,” said Ruchela, first thing. She didn’t even stop to say “Hi.”

“Well, what’s she like?” I ask.

Ruchela then recited a list of favorable properties, except for goth, because goths are the Shiny Pokémon of women.

“She works at the game shop. You should ask her out,” said Ruchela.

“How?” I asked.

“...you drive to the game shop, start talking to her, and then ask her out.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. “That makes me the creepy, bald, over-thirty guy who goes to the game shop just to hit on the one girl at the game shop. That’s everything I not want to be.” I told her, because while I have no control over the first three, I do have control over the fourth.

“So how will you meet?” said Ruchela, with concern.

“We need to find another way.”

A few days later, when I was writing my thesis, I got a message out of the blue, because this was in the final, dying days of AOL Instant Messenger. It was words to the effect of:

“This Rachel girl that I only kind of know keeps bothering me at work about how I should send you a message, so I am.”

Since I’m way super-creepy, I’m quite used to standoffs. I eventually learned that her name was Tiffany, and I gradually steered the conversation into being about movies, because that’s one subject where I shine.

*             *             *

“…so, after talking about movies with her online -- for twenty minutes -- she drove forty minutes -- from Delphi to my apartment in West Lafayette -- because ‘she had to meet me.’ Because, while we were talking about movies, I stumbled upon the smoothest pick up line of all time.”

“Which is?” asked John.

“Now, you just need one more little piece of background information -- see, I never saw The Lion King.”

“WHAT--?!” shouted Jen, as she grabbed my shoulders, staring at me as though I had just drove a steamroller over 34,000 puppies and kittens.  “-- HOW?!”

“Well, I never had anyone to watch it with,” I told her.

Jen’s horrified expression was akin to the broken-hearted lament of viewing the carnage left in the steamroller’s wake.

“But at least you got to watch it, so that line was like a one-time thing,” said Jen “Like, if you tried that again, then she’d know because you wouldn't be surprised when…”

I interrupted Jen to point out that Tiffany brought her well-worn VHS copy, and by the time she realized that I would need to have a VCR, but she was already in Lafayette by the time she realized this. Fortuitously, I made sure I brought my old VCR with me to Purdue, simply because I didn’t have a DVD copy of I Come in Peace. However, she didn’t check the inside of the big white case that the Disney movies of that era came in, and she really brought 101 Dalmatians. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of that, and it is some weak tea, right there. So I never got to see The Lion King. The rest of our relationship went predictably, but that’s another story.

Jen was full-on delusional; tipsy at this point, trying to impose meaning onto the tragedy that she perceived my life to be, much like pretending that the crushed puppies were in doggie heaven would somehow make things okay.  

“O! If you are ever in Seattle, you need to come over and then we can watch it together!” said Jen.

“I’d like that,” I said.

I snapped my fingers and pointed at Jen, to act as a break command in her thought process, to point out how she had fallen into an insidious trap. Instead, she just held my hands, and continued to talk.

“No, we can make a whole night of it! I’ll work it all out with my boyfriend, and we can bake cookies and --”

“HE JUST TOLD YOU THAT IT WAS A LINE!” shouted John, incredulous at how Disney implanted a security exploit in to women’s minds that can instantaneously shut down reason, feminism, and short-term memory.

“That’s not important!” shouted Jen, before returning to describing her overly-detailed and seemingly premeditated plan.

*             *             *

I admit to having tried out this line a few other times since this, just to confirm that it always works. However, I refuse to use it anymore, for fear that it will work again. I don’t want to see The Lion King with anyone else. I liked the people we were at that moment, and although I’m the only one who remembers that moment, I don’t want to betray the moment.

The sad fact is that most of my life isn’t worth remembering. Take today for example. Once I’m done writing this, I’m going to go grocery shopping, I’ll work out, and read for a bit. That’s it. It’s only the strange moments that are worth remembering, because such moments are profound and fleeting. It was over the course of a single moment that I went from being marked for death into becoming one of Becky’s favorite people -- and I can’t recall why that was, and that is also sad. I think it might have been when we tried to explain the Goatapult to her, but that’s another story, one that I’ll have to ask her about.

The moral of the story is that Disney makes you crazy.

I’d also like to point out that I’ve also never seen All Dogs Go to Heaven, and I remain skeptical about it -- because, what about Cujo?