Short Story / Blind Date with A Hash Vaporizing Vegan
This is a story about my date with the Vegan named Erik- Spelt with a K.
That’s right- one of those insecure suburban white kids trying to make himself sound special.
He goes to MIT but is taking a semester off to “find himself”
-see: smoke hash in his Tribeca apartment through his new “vaporizer” that his friend from the local pot store hooked him up with.
”...It’s really great; it burns the seeds so that it’s cleaner and stronger when you inhale it…” (Erik)
LOSER.
But before we start drawing any concrete conclusions about EriK, let me paint you a full picture of MY DATE WITH THE HASH VAPORIZING VEGAN…:
PART I : The Reason the Hash Vaporizing Vegan & His Friends Should Be Sterilized
I meet him outside of his apartment and we greet eachother with an awkward handshake. Having never seen him before, my first impression is: typical Union Square.
To undertand what I mean, just picture yourself standing in Union Square, closing your eyes, holding out your hand, and grabing someone.
That’s him: tall, lean, with scragly dark hair and a 5 o’clock shadow, all dressed up in jeans, a t-shirt and a sweater- go figure.
We walk around the area and he comments on how it is the perfect place to “yuppie watch”
After making a couple of other antagonisitic yuppie references, I start to feel self conscious; dressed in yuppie casual attire, I had just migrated downtown for this blind date from my Park Avenue (yuppie central) work place.
I ooze of yuppiness.
Finally i ask him how he defines “yuppie”.
He replies that it is a materialistic person who is concerned with making money and showing it off to other people.
I self-reflect and begin an internal ‘am I a materialistic yuppie or not’ debate until I look up at the spoiled hipster who is walking carelessly, babbling to himself (because i’m not listening) and I silently tell him to go fuck himself and the unnecessary K spelling of his name.
We walk some more until we come across this plain looking guy and girl. They are holding hands and both greet EriK.
Trite banter exchanges amongst the three of them before the guy directs his attention between EriK and I and asks what we are up to.
EriK says something generic like, “hey man, nothing. Just chillin.”
In one of those ‘yeah i don’t have a life, purpose, or personality’ moments, all four of us stand there staring blankly at eachother.
Feeling a need to say something, I interject “not chillin; more like CHILL-AXIN.”
Note: as you get older, you will notice that whenever you interact with boring, unimaginative people, they will jump all over the slightest opportunity to make a big deal over nothing because they are lagged on something to talk about and in desperate need of a purpose.
So at my simple use of the phrase: CHILL-AXIN, Boring and his girlfriend, Boringer, take the opportunity to say the words ten times more in a patronizing tone.
EriK says nothing at first, opting to look down, face flushed.
As soon as we begin to walk away from his mundane friends, he shrieks,
“i can’t believe you said CHILL-AXIN!”
I didn’t say anything at the time, but to anyone who thinks Chill-Axin (which is a hybrid of Chilling and Relaxing) is a bad word choice: Please Don’t Procreate. You’ll Only Make the World A More Boring Place.
PART II: The NOW Sexually Questionable, Hash Vaporizing Vegan Tivo’s ‘Project Runway’
After “embarrassing” EriK he ushers me into his apartment where we watch 3 consecutive episodes of “Project Runway”
He sits on the right side of the couch and I situate myself on the far left hand side. I ignore his motions for me to sit closer because I determine that I don’t feel like getting molested by an obviously closeted homosexual male, whose make-out attempts with me would only be to prove a point about his sexuality to himself.
NOTE: I don’t care how many girls a guy makes out with; if he tivo’s every episode of Project Runway and then watches them religiously, he likes MEN and has to Deal With It Already.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to let him use my body to find his heterosexuality, EriK suggests we go out for dinner at his favorite vegan place, Caravan of Dreams
Not wanting to endure any more of his kind, I counter with Chipolte’s.
At this I get a “McDonald’s is An Evil, Corporate, People Eating Machine” rant.
Apparently Chipolte’s is owned by McDonalds, so by association, Chipolte’s is also considered “EVIL”.
PART III : The Hash Vaporizing Vegan Eats ‘SATAN’ at the Caravan of Dreams
We get to Caravan of Dreams and are seated by Janice Joplin’s lost twin sister.
(Note: If you live in the NYC area and have ever wondered what Caravans of Dreams is like, think: moody lesbian hangout.
In fact that night, I think EriK and I were the only guy-girl couple there, and with EriK’s passionate fashion verved Project Runway comments still fresh in my mind, we probably would have been better off as a girl-girl couple, because at least then I could have said I was a lesbian and had a better chance of getting into law school- trust me, law schools love Homosexuals, especially CORNELL, anyways….)
Perusing the menu, I note that Caravan of Dreams offers a wonderful array of overpriced weeds. Between the “live” food section (for those Salmonella poisoning-prone health fanatics who think that cooking food deprives them of essential nutrients), and the tasty grass drinks with protein shots, I recognize that I have reached the Hippie Homeland.
In homage to the Hippies, I make a peace sign towards EriK, who is grimacing after having taken a sip of his Grass- Apple- Grasshopper Dingleberry Shake.
EriK orders for both of us: beans with rice; unchicken nachos; and bruschetta.
The “unchicken nachos” is made with this glutonous based chicken substitute called seitan, which is pronounced SATAN. That’s right, the hash vaporizing vegan made me eat SATAN.
It tastes like flavorless squishy foam board in my mouth, but I smile and tell him it tastes good.
Desert rolls around and I decline the wonderful soy icecream and instead wish I had a cow, which I’d milk, and then eat, semi-raw in front of my anti-meat, anti-McDonalds, anti-flavor date.
PART IV : To Kiss OR Not to Kiss the Closeted , Hash Vaporizing , ‘Satan’ Eating, Vegan
At the end of the date, EriK decides to take a page out of chivalry and walk me to the subway station.
We linger outside the station, saying meaningless quibs to eachother.
This goes on for about 5 minutes and I spend that time wondering what it would feel like to kiss a Closeted , Hash Vaporizing , ‘Satan’ Eating, Vegan.
I decide to let my imagination account for that one and we seal our final good-bye with a hug.
I sniff him, because I tend to sniff people I hug.
He smells like lemons.
I like to eat lemons, and I ponder if his skin tastes like lemonade.
Part of me wants to lick him, but I don’t.
I don’t do it because that would be weird, and he’s supposed to be the weird one – not me.
I’m normal. I eat meat, like McDonalds, and have a definitive sexual preference.
And yet, I can’t help but think what it would be like to go on another date with this weird and colorful and confusing character.
Maybe his boring friends would come along and we would watch more ‘Project Runway’ episodes while we drink various root juices and listen to EriK go on more ‘anti-corporate’ rants.
With these final thoughts innundating my mind as I board the subway, I realize that I’m a cynical little twit who’s ‘in-like’ with a cute & normal College (Vegan) guy.
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You have such a definitive voice in this story. Its great. The repetition works as do the growing list of unsavory adjectives.
Now, I’m not sure if this piece is supposed to poking fun at the protagonist as well as the ‘Vegan’ but there is so much sexual stereotyping in the middle to ignore. If that was on purpose….cool. Otherwise you may want to tone that down a bit.
Or not. The edginess of this piece is what makes it work.
I would say as to the writing…cut the first 7 lines and start with Part 1.
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I absolutely loved it up until you re-painted Erik as a “cute and normal college guy” I liked all the hippie, vegan, wanna-be liberal bashing.
It’s good. And freaking hilarious.
very good story…but couldnt the title be a bit more appealling? lol
hey, this is great, especially off the top, the title is wonderful.
It might help here, if you fictionalized the account alittle more than you have in the piece. For example, YOU as the author obviously have knowledge of “typical Union Square” but since I, nor some of your readers have ever been there, it might be a great opportunity to use a little creative writing technique to paint the reader a picture as opposed to just relying on their ability to know what you are conveying without “having shared” the same elemental experience.
“He goes to MIT but is taking a semester off to “find himself”
-see: smoke hash in his Tribeca apartment through his new “vaporizer””
” You’ll Only Make the World A More Boring Place.”
there are elements of this that show great use of humor, more specifically, dark sarcasm, and I think you should use that in a less manufactured way.
Let loose with this thing, and take what you’ve already written (the literal nuts and bolts of the thing)
and apply the same level of humor to it as a whole.
I hope this helps.
Tm
a littke confusing grammar -
”…It’s really great; it burns the seeds so that it’s cleaner and stronger when you inhale it…” (Erik)
You could have just wrote “”…It’s really great; it burns the seeds so that it’s cleaner and stronger when you inhale it…” said EriK ( I know you want to emphasize the “k” )
Oh and I want you to know that the line “That’s right, the hash vaporizing vegan made me eat SATAN.” is the frist line on Urbis to make me luagh out loud. You have a great sense of humor, which is good that you can find the humor in your own afwul situations.
I also would like a little expansion of the last line, it seems a little too important to throw away with one line.
I thought this was very funny, in fact i laughed. I saw the usual spelling errors and typos, but nothing you can’t pick out with an easy editing. I didn’t see any mistakes glaring out at me, and i didn’t see any sentences that annoyed me. All in all, good job. And good luck. Sorry i couldn’t be more of a help.
September 29, 2006
Deleted User
This was very good, and aside from a few technical erros, I say there is absolutly nothing to change. Ah, the trials of dating… and getting a lemon.
As for the technicals… I assume this wasnt meant to be double-spaced (just a result of uploading Id guess) but if you did do that, I wouldnt.
Also, you could combine many of these seperated sentences into paragraphs, which would make it easier to read.
Lastly, I noticed there were a few unneccessary caps like : ‘Deal With It Already’
Aside from that, I loved it, very funny and realistic.
September 23, 2006
Deleted User
Hello,
Ah, this one made me smile through-out the whole read. I loved the light-hearted but witty sarcasm laced through it. The beginning is well done, this whole bit caused me to laugh out loud as I read it;
”…It’s really great; it burns the seeds so that it’s cleaner and stronger when you inhale it…” (Erik)
LOSER.
But before we start drawing any concrete conclusions about EriK, let me paint you a full picture of MY DATE WITH THE HASH VAPORIZING VEGAN…:
PART I : The Reason the Hash Vaporizing Vegan & His Friends Should Be Sterilized
This is a solid write! Clean, concise, well thought out, evokes great images in my head and funny as well. You can’t ask for more (at least I couldn’t)
Nicely done!
~D. Marlar
interesting piece. the title drew me and i’m glad i read this. thanks for sharing!
i thought many lines were unique and entertaining the story is well written and flows well
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