"can i get you anything else?"

jaime said this would make a good blog post. i suppose she's right.

my car was up in salt lake yesterday being repaired, leaving me at the mercy of others or the uta bus schedule, which required a trip to macey's for a bus pass, again leaving me dependent upon extraneous kindness. adding to my car not starting, my washing machine chose to stop performing the spin cycle, my clearplay dvd player stopped recognizing the usb filter drive, and my timer for the lights behind my tv no longer turns the lights on or off.

sam was in and out yesterday and before leaving for a job interview, he asked if i wanted to go to macey's when he got back. being that i hadn't had much need to provide my own food for the last month and a bit, there was little for me to eat other than sugar cereal and the dark chocolate brownies i had made the day before. by the time sam came back i was running only on the remainders of a sugar crash as everything i owned was going on strike.

sam asked what i needed to get a macey's and i said pretty much everything, although i tried to make it quick as we headed to the deli counter. "do you always come here?" he asked. "yeah," i told him. "the meats and cheeses are just better." i ordered some turkey and swiss, because that was what was on sale (although i usually get swiss cheese no matter what). i wanted to get some of the black forest ham, too, but they seemed to be in a hurry and there was a line queuing behind me, so i let it go.

at the end of the bread aisle sam asked me what i thought of the girl who served me. i noticed that she was kind of cute but didn't think twice about it.
"no, no, no, i saw the way that she was smiling at you."
"of course she was smiling at me," i said as i tried to find a good red bell pepper. "it's her job to sell things."
"jeff, you knew what you wanted to buy before you even got to the counter. she didn't have to sell you anything. that smile was for real."
being that just a few days ago i was offered to get setup with someone's daughter because "she likes nerdy guys like [me]", i had a hard time believing sam that some cute deli girl liked me after ordering a pound of oven roasted turkey.

by the time we were in the cereal aisle, sam had said that he was going to go back and get the black forest ham and get her number for me. i was so incredulous to it all that i told him if he came back with her number, i would buy him half a pound of the ham, too.
he walked off and i felt a little self-conscious, wondering how this had all just happened. not sure what to do until he came back, i casually continued my shopping while leaving a message with the the movie i'm working on to see if we're shooting on friday or saturday evening this weekend. just in case.

sam came back with a vanilla ice cream cone, but no sign of a phone number or even my ham. "she said she wants you to ask her yourself," he announced. "and you can do that when we go back to pick up our ham."

there was anxiety in the background as we finished our shopping and we somehow managed to come out at the end of the shampoo aisle, meaning we had a long, direct walk toward the deli counter. i was nervous, but kept it contained.
when we got to the counter, the deli girl had her back to us, working on something else, so the other girl asked us if we were here to pick up our roast beef. sam said that we had the ham, and, thankfully, the deli girl turned around. i smiled. i had no idea what to say. but i was calm. i was nice. i was funny. i got her phone number.

i've never done that before. but i have to admit, i liked the rush and the feeling of success.
now i just need to figure out a date.