The Best Laid Plans

It was once wisely pointed out that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

(Fun literary trivia: The original quote, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley," was from Robert Burns's poem, To a Mouse, and it was the inspiration for the title of the John Steinbeck classic Of Mice and Men. And yes, I am a literary nerd and proud of it.)

When Burns wrote this, I don't think he was talking about a twenty-something girl in the city with a sprained foot on the verge of getting a cold who was planning on taking the night easy by meeting her friends at a bar to watch some sports and call it an early night. But this is how I have chosen to interpret it anyway.

The PLAN was just to meet my friends for dinner and a little football-and-baseball-watching before heading home early to catch up on sleep and fight off this impending cold.

Granted, this was not one of the best plans I have ever had because the girls and I agreed to meet up at the bar where I had previously made out with the hot bartender in the back room of the bar in front of the wait staff.

He was, therefore, incredibly attentive to us and kept replenishing our free drinks when they were only half empty (half full, whatever), in an attempt to get us to stay longer (and possibly for me to make out with him again).

Despite this excessive alcohol replenishment, I was doing a good job of staying sober and vowing to go home soon.

That is, until a group of rowdy and attractive men with accents entered the bar and sat down next to me.

(Side Note: There are a couple of attributes that make me lose all rationality whatsoever and transform me into a puddle of drool. They consist of:

1) Pretty eyes, especially of the green and blue persuasion.



2) Chin dimples and smile lines. Some people call them crow's feet; I call them George Clooney bedroom eyes.



3) Uniforms. Yes, it is totally cliche, but I'm still harboring that Richard Gere "An Officer and a Gentleman" fantasy.



4) Muscles. I'm not quite sure there's anything sexier than the cut of a man's hip into his lower abs when he is totally ripped.



5) Accents.



That's right. Uh oh.)

So needless to say, I immediately made friends with the group of guys who turned out to be a mixture of Brits and Aussies who live in New York.

They were charmed and amused by my antics after a guy at the bar asked me to dinner and attempted to give me his business card. I pointedly rejected him (in my defense, he was bald AND creepy), and when he continued to insist that I take his card, I finally got so frustrated that I took it from him and tore it up in front of his face before tossing the bits into the trash.

One of the Brits turned to me and said, "I can't believe you just did that. He looked like he was about to cry! Why didn't you just take his card and then throw it out after?"

"Look," I explained, "I don't do bullshit. I'm not going to tell him I'm gonna call, take his card, and then never call. I have no intention of calling him or ever seeing him again because he's a weirdo, so I wasn't going to pretend just for the sake of it. It's not how I operate."

My new British friend just looked at me in awe and said (without a hint of sarcasm), "Wow, it's simply shocking to me that you don't have a boyfriend."

That's right. Shocking. Have I mentioned he's my new bestie?

He then introduced me to his Australian buddy with crinkly blue eyes and a six-pack. That's right - if you had put the kid in a Navy uniform, I probably would've had sex with him right then on top of the bar in front of all of the other patrons. I'm not particularly ashamed to admit that either.

The Aussie proceeded to make me laugh for about the next two hours. As if it wasn't enough to seduce me with his adorable accent, he actually had a sense of humor and intelligence. Ridiculous, right?

Which is how it suddenly became 4AM and I realized that my friends had long since retired to their homes and I was aching for my bed and some Sudafed. I told the boys that as fun as they were, I was in dire need of some sleep. The Aussie then asked me if he could "take me out for a bite to eat and get a peck on the cheek?"

Now, it's a fact that if anyone without an accent asked me for anything resembling a "peck on the cheek," I would be more likely to slap him in the nuts than consent to his request. But for some reason, when this entreaty is made with an accent, it comes off as endearing instead of vomit-inducing.

So yeah, yeah, I let him put me in a cab and gave him a kiss on the cheek and my phone number. After this, I don't think my hot bartender will be such a fan of mine anymore and the free booze isn't going to be flowing my way quite as much as it did before...

Which I can live with. Because I made new friends.

With accents.