Neighbour’s Diaries: The Wrong Start

I grabbed a t-shirt, ran out the door, and I was halfway down the stairs before I even realized that I was still dressed in only boxers. And she had already seen me. Standing there on the stairs, looking down at this extremely pretty girl, I was star struck. I’d been sitting by my window, idly eating roasted ground nuts, looking at people walk in and out of my flat block when I saw her. Looking dangerously pretty, like she’d just stepped out of a fashion Mag, I could hardly keep my eyes from popping out. It wasn’t the first time I had seen her, it was kind of hard not to notice someone as stunningly attractive as her. But I also knew it when I was out-classed, and truth be told, this chikidee looked way out of my league. I simply wasn’t in her class. But there I was, on the stairs, staring down at her. And there she was looking up at me, wondering what on earth could have made me come running down the stairs, in only boxers, like my flat was on fire. Well, I was on fire but a different kind of fire. Feeling extremely silly, wanting to recover some sense of dignity, I said “hi”. Of course she didn’t answer; instead she turned to walk away. And then I said, “uhmm, excuse me”. The thing is, I didn’t have an idea of what I even wanted to tell her. When she turned, with an irritated look on her face, I asked a really dumb question;” are you from church?” Of course she was from church! She was holding a bible, for Christ’s sake! And it was a Sunday afternoon. Apparently, her magnetic field was making my logic circuits malfunction, because I wasn’t making any sense. Now her facial expression changed to,” are you crazy?” and she walked away. Then I heard my mouth say, “you are beautiful”. That must be the weakest and lamest line I have ever told a girl. I immediately felt foolish. She merely shook her head in exasperation and cat walked off. My goodness, such physical perfection! But then, what was wrong with me! Surely, I could do better than this. Feeling like the world’s greatest loser, I mumbled a few words I didn’t even understand, and turned to climb the stairs back to my flat. And then she laughed. She just turned round and started laughing out loud. She asked me what kind of weed I had been smoking all morning. She studied me from head to toe, grimacing at my crumpled boxers, my unshaven beard and uncombed hair, and sleepy eyes. In contrast to her trendy, picture-perfect fashion house cut, I looked a total mess. I could use the excuse that I had just woken up, but it was already afternoon. My appearance didn’t exactly spell out “responsible gentleman” to the observing eye. Standing akimbo, she fired at me: “look at you. You need to sort yourself out, man. Go get a life”. That was enough for me. I turned back to go up to my flat, wondering what I had been thinking to do something as evidently suicidal as that. As if I hadn’t had enough embarrassment for one day, a kid running down the stairs bumped into me. And the groundnuts … My gosh, I had forgotten about the groundnuts!! The groundnuts that I still held in my hand flew everywhere! The girl laughed even harder. It was pure entertainment to her. Mercilessly, she drove in the final nail, “hey, if you came out here intending to hit on me, that is the biggest joke of the year. Crazy Crazy clown!!”, and she walked away leaving me feeling useless. My Sunday afternoon was messed. Even when my girlfriend called, I couldn’t help being rude to her. Later that evening, I run into the Miss Perfect Figure at the shops. Seeing me approach, she said something to her friend, and they both started laughing. I didn’t need to be a genius to figure out that they were laughing at my boxer-groundnut incident. So, obviously my nightmare wasn’t over. I walked up to her, and ignoring her friend, I told her, “Miss, have your fun now because after I break your heart, you will not be laughing so much anymore”. I walked off. I didn’t have even the smallest idea how I was going to do that; first, make her forget about the whole boxer-groundnut thing, then make her fall for me, then break her heart. I didn’t even know her name! Ends