Girl in the jeans with the ridiculous walk...m4w

"Do you read Missed Connections?"

"I'm sorry?" Angie replied, unable to cogently decipher his question.

"Like on Craigslist?" The man was smallish and looked a little like Tom Cruise... only less... overtly insane. His eyes were blue, and although his complexion seemed to indicate he was a little older than Angie, his features were young and appealing. An awkward silence ensued as Angie still had no idea what the man was talking about and her expression clearly conveyed this. The man pulled out a dark smart phone and swiftly updated Angie's world. After he had shown her the extent of Craigslist, including the "Missed Connections" part of the Personals section, the awkward silence resumed. Angie had no idea what to do next - her years of self-pity, diet coke, and late night TV had poorly equipped her for randomly meeting an intriguing guy. Fortunately (fortunately, that is, for the moment; unfortunately for both Angie and the man) he was equally awkward.

"Well... nice to meet you?" He said, glancing away as an involuntary grin slashed his face.

"Who were you trying to meet? If you don't mind me asking." Angie's awkwardness paid off as she stammered out exactly what she wanted to ask. Her directness caught him immediately off guard.

"Who is your Missed Connection?"

The Strange Stranger

“Uhhhhh…. I’m trying to see what this display looks like from different angles. See that dress, it looks completely different from over here.”
“Oh, I thought you might have been here to meet me…I mean you weren’t told to be here at this time or day?”
“No, just checking out this display. I’m actually here because this store has been getting some complaints about its display. Can’t you see how awful it is? Something really needs to be done. It’s all about how it looks as you walk by and when you are this end it has no draw for a customer.”
“I’ve never really thought about it that much. Well, sorry to interrupt. Good luck with fixing this display.”
Angie continued to pace back in front of the display, appearing to scrutinize the mannequins until one of the employees came out and asked if she was interested in one of the dresses on display. Angie quickly lied and said no thank you and proceeded to walk lightly, sexily, away.
Once she was out of the mall however, she began to stomp to the rhythm of “Why-Am- I-So-Stupid?!” oblivious to the stares of other mall goers trying to steer clear of her path. Angie was so intent on her stomping rhythm that she ran into that person who had witnessed her pacing in front of the display window. She was so startled to be taken out of her rhythm that she was not expecting the next question that was asked.

In which Angie makes a resolution

As she overanalysed the way she walked, Angie made a decision. No, a New Year's Resolution, albeit a few days early.

'It's never too early to start on those, right?' she thought to herself. 'Plus, if I start now, maybe I'll actually keep to it in the new year. No one ever keeps their actual New Year's resolutions; maybe a pre-New Year's resolution will be more successful.'

She frowned a little as she concentrated on every step she took.

"Less foot slapping, Angie. Let's start there," she muttered to herself. Then, realising she'd said that out loud, and that talking to herself probably wasn't the way to entice people to spend time with her, she decided to--no, resolved-- to make sure that she didn't accidentally let any more decisive phrases slip out.

She knew that she thought about things too much, and never actually did anything. Last night, channel-surfing and chugging diet soda, all she'd done was analyse and reanalyse everything that she didn't have in her life. What was the point of that?

She was walking straighter now. She still swayed more than most people would, but she focused on turning it into a sexy strut rather than the flat-footed, drunken swagger it usually appeared to be. Her self-improvement plan was starting already.

Angie was cognizant of what her life lacked: excitement, love...anything of interest, really. And, she knew why. It was her! If she wasn't interesting, how could she expect her life to be interesting?

Her thoughts came back to Andy Bumpass. Sure, he was fictional, but his life was interesting. And why? Because he was interesting! That fictional mall cop had more depth and character in one episode than she'd been able to muster in years.

She paced back and forth in front of the large Bloomingdale's windows several times, watching herself closely and making small adjustments to her posture with every lap. She'd mastered the soft footfall -no more noisy slapping feet for her- and the sexy strut independently; now she just had to be able to do both together.

"What are you doing?"

Cannibalism. From a previous writing exercise.

(From the writing exercise book What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Bernays/Painter.  Exercise entitled "Beginning a Story with a 'Given' First Line."  The exercise: "Where were you last night?")

Angie read the sign advertising CBS's latest bombshell docudramedy.  The show followed Andy Bumpass a real-life mall cop following his childhood dream by moonlighting as a carpet-cleaning agency dispatcher.  Each episode revealed new complexities to Andy's edgy lifestyle until he arrived home to answer his wife's tagline question "Where were you last night?"  Andy always had trouble trying to convincingly recreate the night's events for his wife.  Hilarity ensued as the audience endured Andy's imagined flashbacks.  Angie hated that she knew this.

WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?  The yellow block letters on the poster cleverly condemned the passers-by for not watching Andy's latest adventure and it was working.

Angie read the sign and when she read it she felt guilty because she was reminded that she had wasted another night last night and that instead of being with people or trying to be with people or trying to be with someone in particular she had instead spent the night alone, again, on her couch that smelled like mustard consuming an entire keg of cheese puffs and watching a series of pathetic primetime network attempts to encapsulate life as it is in one hour unfortunately including the aforementioned CBS docudramedy.

As she trundled down the crowded city street alone Angie briefly thought about what a waste her life was just like her last night but mostly she thought about how when she walked she swayed side to side and slapped her feet more pronouncedly than most people and that was probably why no one would spend time with her. 

Now what?