Bream Gives Me Hiccups by Jesse Eisenberg Page B

because the morning adrenaline rush gets my head in the corporate game. It’s a minefield out there and the gym turns me into an emotional tank.
    I should probably mention that I approached you with the sole intention of having sex with you. Ideally tonight. I assessed your body from the other end of the bar and thought that, irrespective of your personality, I’d like to have sex with you. I know we’ve only just met, but I enjoy being penetrated by a stranger with no promise of an emotional commitment. Call me old-fashioned.
    Oh, how gauche of me! I’ve just been rambling on like some kind of Chatty Calvin. I haven’t even properly introduced myself. My name is Terri, with a dollar sign over the i . I’m not afraid to make money, is what that says, especially if it’s apportioned based on my physical efforts and intellectual abilities.
    So what do you think? Would you like to take me up on my offer to buy you that drink? No? What about the indiscriminate sex? We could head back to my place, which is actually pretty dirty at the moment. It’s really more of a crash pad. A landing spot for me and my Steelers-themed minifridge filled with domestic beer.
    What’s that? I’m harassing you? How horrible. And you probably won’t even report it. All too often, men won’t report harassment or abuse because it conflicts with an archaic sense of misguided masculinity and pride. But it’s so important to alert the authorities of any aggressive behavior from a woman as soon as possible. A friendly tap on the shoulder becomes a less-than-playful nudge becomes throwing a man down two flights of stairs at three in the morning.
    I’m just saying: Women Are Dangerous.
    No, no! Don’t call the bartender, he’s been on his feet all day. I’ll just leave.
    No, no! Don’t get the door, I’m perfectly capable of letting myself out.
    And don’t worry about me. I’m just going to head home, eat a TV dinner, and fall asleep in shapeless pajamas. But for now, I thank you for your time, which was roughly two-thirds as valuable as mine.

A GUY ON ACID TRIES TO PICK UP A WOMAN AT A BAR
    Hey, how’s it going? Mind if I sidle up? I saw you over here sitting alone and I started crying. In a way, we’re all alone, but to be alone at a bar , at a place specifically designed to meet other humans—and what are humans? We’re all just carbon-based light refractions anyway—was particularly unnerving. Do you want a piece of gum? I have four left.
    Are you waiting for someone? It’s always so awkward to approach a person at a bar and then find out they’re waiting for someone else. I was waiting for someone tonight as well, but she never showed. It was my mother, who died in a car accident when I was seven.
    She’s not really dead. I just lied to you because I’m in denial because she actually is dead. It’s like when the baby panda is torn away from its mother by a scientist. But I’m the babypanda and my mother is the mother panda and the scientist is my mother’s faulty brake pads. Have you ever watched baseball? Do you know how to make fire? I would die in the wild! Do you want some gum? There’s still three pieces left.
    So, do you want to go out with me? Just kidding, we’re already here. We’re out. What is out ? We’re all carbon based! Do you want to have sex with me is what I really meant to ask you. Do you? I mean, not here of course, it would be gauche and my mother could walk in at any moment, but we could go back to my apartment, which smells because I rarely flush the toilet because I think I’m conserving water. But I flushed it before I came here in anticipation of meeting someone like you who would be disgusted by something like that. There’s only two pieces of gum left! Time is running out on this gum! We’ll all be dead in a hundred years!
    What are you drinking? It’s so weird how