The Girl Card

I lost my audio engineer to the audio engineering convention in Manhattan this weekend.

Sunday I took the train in to go see him, and we went out to dinner with a bunch of his audio friends and a couple of professors from UMass Lowell where he went to school. They talked audio around me, and I tried to keep up with the conversation, but as Rob and I were the only ones drinking the cabernet (and between the two of us, mostly me), it got kind of hard. I ate too much wonderful Italian food and drank too much wine. The combo made me drowsy.

Still, I was game to hit a bar afterwards (although I stopped drinking and resisted being cajoled into a tequila shot), but I decided to head back earlier than everyone else. Rob walked with me to the subway.

We got to the Times Square Shuttle subway. It takes you horizontally underneath 42nd Street from Times Square (which is on the West Side of Manhattan) to Grand Central Terminal (on the East Side). He got ready to put me on board.

"You're not coming?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
"No. I'm tired. I'm drunk. I want to go crash. You'll be just fine."
"Oh. Hm."
"Is that ok?"
"Sure. *sigh*"

We went back and forth for a bit; you know how it is. I said it was ok, but it really wasn't (I'm such a girl sometimes.) He said things like, "Ok, you said it was ok, so I'm going...but wait...it's not really ok is it?"

Even drunk, he is highly perceptive, and this is why I keep him. (Well, that and... nevermind.)

Finally, I wrapped my arms around him and smiled.

"I promise," I slurred drunkenly said, (and I meant it too!) "that I will not use this card very often. However. I'm a girl. It is dark, it is the City, I am drunk, and even though I am perfectly capable of taking this subway alone, I simply do not want to. You are coming with me, and that is that."

So he did.