WIDOW, WIDOW_90 minutes

I was at city hall standing in line for something rather, thinking about how much this experience was going cost me - overdue dog licenses cost a lot, I was guessing - when from the corner of my eye I realize that the clerk behind the counter was smiling at me. She was a looker, this clerk and considering that flirting was the last thing on my mind, this was a nice distraction. So I smiled back and because I'm socially retarded, I looked away. Looking up again, I make eye contact with her, her smile was that much wider now - which is a killer to me because that's one of my weaknesses when it comes to the opposite sex...beautiful smiles. The same social retard in me kicks in and I look behind me to check to see if she was actually smiling at me and not some stunningly handsome cad that's a mix of Johnny Depp and whomever else Hollywood has manufactured to make womens' hearts swoon these days, who was standing behind me instead. And unless she had a weird fetish for older women who wore large, cable-knit sweaters and mom jeans (you know the kind of jeans I'm speaking of, yeah?), I stipulated that she was indeed - with that bright, beautiful smile - looking at me. Neato.

Now, this third time looking at her, I see her (sort of on the side and as inconspicuously as the large, open area that city hall counter tops would allow) motioning to me with her index finger to come to her. It was a nanosecond of a thought that passed through my head that said, "Dammit...I'm going to loose my place in line if I walk over there," but I decided that this kind of thing didn't happen very often (at least not to me) and I walked over to where she was. My heart was picking up in pace.

"Hi there," she said. I can see her eyes were a light crystal blue and she smelled heavenly. Killed me on the spot. "My name's Sarah."

"Oh, hi! How are you, Sarah? My name's Eric. How are you?" Yeah...I really did say it twice. At this point I was feeling sort of good about myself because this woman saw something in me that actually inspired her enough to first of all, wave me over and second of all, talk to me. I'm not much by way of being slick or suave or someone who knows how this works, so these experiences don't ever, EVER happen to me. This was new and it was awesome.

"Oh, I'm fine, thank you for asking," she replies.

Oh, you ARE indeed "fine", Sarah The Cute Clerk From City Hall. I'm about to have a random conversation with a pretty, pretty girl and how insane was this? Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-bump went my chest.

She leaned in closer - you know, in that way that people do when they're about to tell you something they don't want broadcast to the world - opting me to do the same. At this point either my heart stopped or I became confused. Either or.

"Eric..." she started.

My eyebrow raises, inquisitively.

"Your fly is open."