Gaming: Melissa

We finally get back to Jersey. As we got off the bus, we saw this girl sitting at the bus stop. I'm just looking at her 'cause she's mad cute. Jimmy notices and starts to look too. Dan doesn't see her for the longest time. Once he finally notices what we're looking at, I urge him to go over and talk to her.

I don't know what it is with people, but they're afraid to approach other people.

By the time they get the resolve to go talk to her, we're already inside the mall. We meet up with Ben and come to a consensus that we (Ben and I) as the resident "mac daddies" must use our powers for good, not evil, and help our fellow brothers out. The night will not close until they (Dan and Jimmy) at least attempt to pick up a girl.

We walk through the mall pointing out different prospects. Some are obviously too young, like 12 or 13. Others look like they would be too old, early to mid 30s. Finally, we find not one, not two, but three girls in the target range.

There happend to be a group of Asians at Willowbrook wrapping Valentine's gifts for donations. It took us three passes before anything happened.

On the first pass, we stopped by to kind of see what was up. Didn't really chat much 'cause it was a guy that was talking to us.

On the second pass, Ben opened the opportunities for the rest of us to move in. Ben and I were being funny, being clever, a little bit jerky, all in all, showing interest in what was going on.

It was clear from the beginning that one of the girls already had someone. Another one, the cutest one there, was just too shy and quiet to really interact with, and the last one, ahhh, the last one. She was fun and ameacable. Ben and I kept dropping nuggets of gold for Dan to follow up with, but he didn't really pick up on any of them. The extent of his advances was he got his XBox game wrapped.

Eventually, we we ran out of material and had to move on. While we were walking around, Ben and I proceeded to prod and push Dan to make some sort of move. We formulated a game plan, gave him lines to use, gave him paths of conversation, but he just couldn't work up the nerve. It got to the point where I was going to ask her just to show them how easy it was.

Finally, we decided that we would make another pass. When we got to the booth, she wasn't there. Ben made a quick comment, but we didn't linger. Giving up, we decided to just head out of the mall.

As we were passing Delia's, I caught a glimpse of her inside. This was it; Dan's best chance. She was alone, away from her peers, ripe for any sort of advance. Sure it was a girl's store, but Jimmy brought up a good point later. He could've used that to his advantage and used it as an icebreaker.

Alas, Dan missed his chance and she came out and went back to the group. We stood around for a good 10 minutes, when he finally decided to go up and ask her. He needed a bit of moral support so I went with.

Right away, you could tell that this was an uphill battle. We had already been by their stand about three times now. Coming back a fourth time was just a bit much.

Even though things didn't go in Dan's favor, I give him mad props for putting up with Ben and myself's pushing and prodding and finally asking her.

I think her name was Melissa.