After the show, I hit up el baño and was forcing my way through the mosh pit in the lobby, when lo!
I touched Joel's butt.
It just so happened to be Joel's birthday. I know this because they had a cake for him during the show, not because I am a creepy she-stalker. Although, admittedly, I do know my way around a search engine. But I digress... the relevance of this fact will soon become apparent, I promise.
Being the totally oblivious Masshole that I am, it took me an embarrassingly long moment to realize exactly whom I had just molested. Ironically, as I was rubbing up on him in my fever to get in line to meet him, I was thinking to myself, “I wish this prick would get out of my way so I can get in line already. Great, I just touched his butt. Why the hell is he wearing a suit? And why is he stopping to have a conversation when I am practically fucking him to get by? Wow his voice sounds awfully familiar...” What eventually made it all click into place was when one of the theater employees wished him a happy birthday. First, I thought they were talking to me, which was weird because my birthday's in September, stupid. Then I realized that he was actually addressing the man whose posterior I had awkwardly caressed mere moments before, and that man was Joel.
And I touched his butt!
I've had a raging boner for Joel H. since I was twelve, so you can imagine that I was pretty excited about this magical turn of events.
Realizing only too late that this probably made me appear more guilty, I literally pronked out of there.
Then I kept pronking around in circles until I found the line, which was, embarrassingly, right in front of me, and began charging nerds a buck a piece to touch the hand that touched Joel's butt.
Despite my better judgment--and the growing concern that Joel would call security on me if he recognized me as the redhead with the gropey hand--I actually waited forever in line to meet them after the whole butt thing transpired, because I can never pass up a chance to come off looking like a mint weirdsmobile in a public situation.
I did, however, have the the following mental guidelines prepared for when I approached the signing table:
a) don’t throw up on anyone.
b) don’t pass out on anyone.
c) don’t lose control of your bladder. (I realize I had already peed, but fear does crazy shit.)
d) try not to sound stupid.
e) for heaven's sake, watch those gropey hands!
The first three turned out to be a lot harder than I thought.
I met Trace first, demonstrating right away that my Herculean efforts to not defecate, micturate, regurgitate, or fall down were severely compromising my conversational skills. I seemed to develop a rather distressing speech impediment and could only stammer out three words at a time with great difficulty. To my astonishment, my linguistic capabilities actually deteriorated as I made my way down the table, so by the time I actually got to Joel, I was making one continuous shrieking sound much like the emergency broadcast system. I think he tried asking me questions (possibly: "are you that crazy bitch that touched me down there?") to which I responded with awkward, halting speech punctuated by heavy-breathing and the short, gasping sounds of my dignity slowly dying.
Wait a minute--
Did I become Torgo for a second?
I am always so elegant under pressure.
Anyway, despite and my grope-hands, I got this sweet picture:
I don't know, does he look nervous in this photo? (Honestly, I didn't really know what was happening here. So many brain cells asphyxiated that I was practically a drooling retard.) He seems like a sensitive guy, so I worry that the next time he's in a crowd he'll have post-traumatic stress about over-eager red-haired girls coming at him with grab-hands. And I will have to live with the guilt that I so rudely manhandled my man-muse.
However, I maintain that I am utterly blameless; it could have happened to anyone. He's a diminutive person, and frankly, he's hard to pick out of a crowd unless he's wearing a red jumpsuit. Plus he's literally only three inches taller than me, so my hand just naturally gravitated toward his pants.
Showers, anyone?
