How to impress a girl

Spinach Dip was guest posting at [Redacted] the other day and lamenting his novice-ness when it comes to picking up girls. I suggested there are many women who would love even a bumbling idiot to come to their rescue and save them from the overly drunk and uber aggressive guy that is sure to make himself known in each and every social situation. You may be shy, but you're not that guy - so give us ladies a break and make some small chat.

This reminded me of an interaction I had awhile back and have been meaning to post about with my new insurance agent (who coincidently just called). Let this experience (which due to my inability to be brief will be told in three installments) serve as some encouragement to all you fellows who shun the traditional pick up, and perhaps a bit of inspiration to you women who are sick of waiting for the guy to make the first move (though I'm not promising a happy ending - this blog is, of course, still told by a singleton).

After an unfortunate rear-ending incident (it was dark! And raining! And a kid ran right in front of the SUV in front of me! And a fingernail-sized scratch on a Mercedes SUV apparently cost my insurance $1000+ to fix!) I have faced some steep insurance costs. After months of gathering alternative insurance offers in a hopeful little pile with promises to myself to do some research and find a cheaper option, I finally got in touch with Mercury and ended up saving myself $80 a month. Anyone who knows me knows the total elation any sort of sale or savings prompts - and this was no exception. That's almost a thousand bucks a year! But even better than the money savings was the overall experience purchasing the insurance, wholly thanks to the delightful agent who helped me.

You see, I am a multi-tasker. So when I called to set up the policy I was on my way to a concert, hoping to use the car time to take care of business. Mapquest printout and drivers license in hand (welcome to driving in The OC) I did my best to find where I was going and answer the laundry list of questions Jeff was asking me. Problem was, mapquest chose that night to smote me (even though I was on my way to a concert at a church) and the location was nowhere to be found. So I sheepishly asked Jeff if he wouldn't mind helping me out since he was at his office. Did he ever! He googled, he mapquested, he worked from memory having been in the area within the last week. I drove in circles, we laughed, my insurance policy slowly got finished and I was honestly having a great time. You could just tell he was a completely authentic and truly nice individual - but not in a sappy, co-dependent sort of way, rather in a "I'm honestly willing to do whatever it takes to help you out because you are somewhat entertaining" sort of way. I kept joking that we should be in one of the car insurance commercials, "Not only did he help me with my policy, he helped me find my way home."

The story would be great if he helped me find the concert and it ended there. But that would mean I've got more than a single anorexic hamster running itself to death on the wheel in my head, and hadn't managed to thoroughly confuse myself about the concert itself. Because I simply couldn't find the church, Jeff finally went to their website - and let me know that the concert wasn't actually for that night - it was for the following Friday (I blame the ticket company for switching the dates on unsuspecting customers). So I sheepishly thanked him, profoundly, for sticking with me (we'd been on the phone for an hour at that point), and hung my head in embarrassment. However as embarrassed as I was, there was something about the interaction that stuck with me - and I had a secret hope that when he showed up to take photos of my car the next day, the sparks I felt over the phone would be more literal...