"I could more easily forgive his vanity had he not wounded mine."

This week, we were given the assignment to "buy a stranger a coke" and then write about our experience....supposedly this saying, "buying someone a coke," does not literally mean that you buy them a can/bottle/glass of coke, but rather that you give them any sort of drinkable refreshment. My Professor (the pithy writer, comedian, and falconer:Shayne Clarke) took an even looser definition of this phrase and dictated that we only needed to buy something (anything) for someone that we didn't know.

Well, I had a very busy week this week, so right after class I decided to use my 45 min break to "get er done" so that I wouldn't have to worry about it later. I waltzed to the Cougareat, determined to walk up to the most attractive man with an unadorned left ring finger that I could find and ask him if he wanted to get ice cream with me. I looked around me and all of the attractive guys that seemed to maybe be my type were either already in line somewhere, already talking to a girl, or looked like they were in a hurry. After about 10 min. of my resultless searching (ha! ironic how that part of the story mirrors real life for me....:P), I resolved to just ask the next guy I saw that wasn't married and wasn't completely unattractive to me...so I approach this moderately good looking guy working on his laptop at a table:

Sam: "Hey! I know that this is kinda weird, but for my management communications class we were given an assignment to buy something for someone that we don't know and was wondering if you could help me out and let me buy you some ice cream?!"

Random Guy: (sourly with upturned nose) "wellllll, I actually don't like ice cream, but if you want to go and buy me a doughnut and bring it back to me I'll probably eat it."

Sam: "Ok! well do you have a favorite kind?"

Random Guy: (haughtily) looking down at his computer "I don't care."

Sam: "I'll just have to surprise you then, I suppose--I'll be back!"

I seriously wanted to smack "Random Guy." Not really-but I seriously considered not returning with his undeserved doughnut and finding someone who would have been a little bit more excited. Anyway, kind of a blow--I would have cared a lot more had I really thought that he was an interesting seeming guy, but between his crooked teeth and very unfriendly manner, it wasn't too hard to shake off the bad taste left in my mouth...and it reaffirmed my thought that you should treat everyone with kindness--even if you think that they're hitting on you and you think that you're not interested. People deserve to be treated with dignity. Ok, I"ll step off of my soapbox and be done with my prideful rant. MLEH! And can I just say that it's a shame that my unfortunate encounter is now immortalized on my blog...oh well! "Breathing it all in," right?!