[Grim is walking with Jill towards a restaurant.]

Grandpa always said a first date should be lunch, like, sandwiches and soda, no booze. With that in mind, I took Jill to B’s on First Street. B’s has since closed because their sandwiches were gross, but that’s neither here nor there. So we got a table at B’s and ordered grilled cheeses and got to talking: “Are you single?” she said. “Yes. And you?” “Yes. Very single.” A good start. We ate quickly and split the bill and walked back to her studio. She made tea and we sat on the couch and kissed.  I touched her behind the ear, where some of them like to be touched, and she said, “Before we go any further, I should tell you something.”

“You can tell me anything,” I said.

“I have a son.”

“I love kids. When can I meet him?”

“Today, after we have sex. But before you meet him, you should know that he’s feral.”

I’d never met a feral child before and I’m always game for meeting new people, so this was an exciting turn of events.

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C.O.D.Y. The Robot Who Hangs Out enters the laundromat dragging a large suitacse. He approaches a Young guy.

CODY: Where should I put this?

YOUNG GUY: I don’t work here.

CODY: Aw, drag.

CODY walks to the counter. A YOUNG WOMAN is behind the counter reading a book.

CODY: Can you help me out?

YOUNG WOMAN: What’s up?

CODY: What should I do with these clothes?

YOUNG WOMAN: Well, are you going to wash them yourself or do you want to leave them here?

CODY: Leave them here? No, man. I really need these clothes.

YOUNG WOMAN: I meant, do you want to pay for wash-and-fold service and pick them up later? Or are you going to wash them yourself?

CODY: I want the one where you do it.

YOUNG WOMAN [handing him a laundry bag]: So you’ll have to take the clothes out of the suitcase and put them in this bag so I can weigh them.

CODY: Excuse me?

YOUNG WOMAN: I need to see how much your clothes weigh because we charge by the pound. And if I put the whole suitcase on the scale it won’t be accurate.

CODY: This scale doesn’t work with suitcases?

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[Grim is in bathrobe, at his desk, on computer.]

Chatroulette.com. I have spent time there, and I regret it. Before I tell you why, let me explain what Chatroulette.com is for the folks who go outside sometimes: It’s a website that lets you video chat with random strangers all over the world. Say you’re a lonely Radio Shack manager in Toledo, Ohio, and you want to show your dick to strangers. You could go to Chatroullette.com and show your dick to, say, a lonely reality-show star in Santa Monica, California. And if he’s feeling up to it, he might show you his dick too, and then on Monday you’d have something to tell the dudes at the Shack. If you want to leave a chat, click the Next button (short-cut: F9) and a new stranger will appear. So that’s Chatroullette.com.

On February 2 I saw a post about Chatroulette.com on The Awl and clicked through. No sign-up/password/login horseshit, which was nice. I soon found myself hanging at a Korean(?) girl’s 19th birthday party. There were four girls and two dudes and they were drinking rum and Sunkist in a dorm room. “You’re my first Chatroulette.com strangers,” I said. The birthday girl (she wouldn’t give her name even though I was forthcoming with mine) asked me why I was wearing a bathrobe. “Just ’cause. 19 is a great age, enjoy it.” They left the chat. Not a bad first chat. The next stranger was a big dude in a Mets jersey. He immediately left the chat. I have a feeling he only wanted to chat with women, or maybe other Mets fans. My third chat was the regrettable chat.

The third stranger wasn’t actually a stranger but rather Ms. L., my high school English teacher. No one believes me, but it’s true. I should have taken a screenshot. She was in white PJs, still looking great. Glass of red wine on the nightstand, the song “Fireflies” by Owl City playing. The last thing I’d heard about Ms. L. was that she’d been fired for being grossly irresponsible. She was the assistant cheerleading coach and, in ‘05 or ‘06, when the squad was in Columbus for regionals, she brought a few of the girls to an OSU party and they had the night of their lives. The girls told everyone and the news made its way to Parents, who raised a stink, and Ms. L. was fired. Or perhaps she was pushed into resignation. Either way, I was always more interested in the rumor that she had slept with Luke Apples, an athletic kid who was in her class with me in. Luke Apples and I would often bullshit about how we wanted to have sex with her and how she would be into it because she was divorced.

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In 2005 the Cincinnati Bengals’ public relations team had a difficult task: Choose a musician to write and perform a theme song for the team’s playoff run. Considering the nature of the city (reserved), any proposal involving a rap artist was promptly rejected. When a sixty-something gentleman in the room suggested Kenny Rogers, Bob A., Director of Business Development, almost spit out his seltzer. “With all the racial stuff going on, that would not fly.” So after a week of Power Points and catered lunches, someone in the group mentioned funk star, and Cincinnatian, Bootsy Collins, whose style is “not too rap-like, but not too…”

“White, sir?”

“Yes, not too white, and he doesn’t sing about guns.”

“Or does he?

“I could form a sub-committee to check on that—if he has sung about guns in the past.”

“We really should make sure.”

The resulting song, “Fear Da Tiger,” was a transcultural smash hit.

Mr. Collins went on to open Bootsy’s, a restaurant and nightclub which I’ve yet to visit but just voted for in this Best of Metromix poll, because why not? Go Bootsy.

Our family friend Ed B. is a recently retired astronaut who never made it to the moon. But, as he will tell you, his work was integral to many poorly publicized experiments. During his 70th birthday party last week Ed had a breakdown and got in his Honda and drove four hours to Wapakoneta, Ohio, the birthplace of Neil Armstrong. His wife Sarah called to ask why, and he said, “I’m curious.” She hung up and turned to us and said, “He’s jealous.” We heard later that Ed stayed at a bed and breakfast, walked around town, rubbed the statue of Neil Armstrong, drank with the boys at the Moose Lodge, and ate eggs in bed the next morning. He drove away hungover, certain that if he had grown up in such a place, he too would have been determined to get as far away as possible.

[Grim is in his small kitchen.]

Fay from the Hudson says I should cook more. She thinks men need to be self-sufficient and shouldn’t eat takeout every night. So I’m starting to cook, but I’m taking it slow. Today I’m making a caramel apple from scratch instead of buying the pre-made ones. Step 1: Shove a thin, sharp object into the bottom of an apple. A meat thermometer would be perfect for this, but I’m not a cook so I don’t own a meat thermometer. I look in the drawers: nothing but plastic forks and knives. What’s a man to do?

When I was a kid I once walked into the dentist’s office eating a caramel apple. The receptionist looked at my tired mother and was like, Lady, did you really just let your kid walk into a dentist’s office eating a friggin caramel apple? Dr. Philbin wasn’t happy about it either. Dr. Philbin: confident; gorgeous wife; smart children; high-paying job. And he kept a Pac-Man arcade game in the waiting room so he was alright with me.
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[Grim is in his studio apartment.]

I’m finally ready to tell you about that project I’ve been working on. Promise you won’t mention it to the press? OK. So I’m going to frame Mayor Bloomberg for murder. But in a funny way. Here’s the plan: First I’ll murder a bum — a mean bum, one that kind of deserves it, so don’t get all up in my face about how that’s wrong. Then I’ll leave Mayor Bloomberg’s grocery list on the body. I found the grocery list in his hotel room on Christmas Eve. (I work at a fashionable hotel called the Hudson.) It’s written on official Mayor Bloomberg stationary and the items are: two limes, diet tonic water, Plymouth. I asked Michael the bartender what Plymouth is and he said it’s a type of gin, so it seems like Bloomberg was planning to make, and possibly drink, gin and tonics. Why he needed to write out a whole grocery list just for gin and tonics is a mystery to me. And why was he alone at the Hudson on Christmas Eve? Another mystery. Perhaps a scandalous mystery. We have a celebrity-related scandal at the Hudson just about every day. But no matter: I don’t want to solve a mystery; I want to frame the Mayor for murder. When the cops find Bloomberg’s grocery list on the dead bum’s body they’ll be like, that’s funny, how did this get here? Bloomberg will have to go all the way downtown to the police station — or does he already work near the police station? — and answer questions about the grocery list. And the cops will ask to see something else he wrote so they can compare it to the handwriting on the grocery list. Even if they don’t convict him, man, it will be a huge hassle for him to deal with. And I have a feeling that Mayor Bloomberg, like me, is the type of guy that cannot deal with hassles.

Why am I doing it? Because I told myself that in 2010 I’d stop sitting around the apartment and get out and meet people. I got out last weekend but I didn’t have any fun. The bar I went to was too loud and they charged me eight dollars for an Amstel Light that I didn’t even finish. I tried to meet people at a coffeehouse but everyone was busy with their computers. Riding the L train out to Canarsie can be fun, but no one will talk to you. Well, no normal people anyway. So I revised my New Year’s resolution. Now I’m going to get out of the apartment and goof on people. 2010 will be my year of goofs, and billionaires like Mayor Bloomberg are the best kind of people to goof on. If you don’t agree with that then perhaps you’re a billionaire and perhaps you’ll be getting goofed on by me in the near future.

So I’m heading out the door now. I have Bloomberg’s grocery list in my pocket and a bungee cord (for bum-strangling) in my backpack. I’m also bringing a granola bar in case I get hungry. Wish me luck, and please don’t leak this to the press. Oh, any idea where the meanest bums hang out? Hollis? I’m thinking Hollis.

Next: The First Laundromat Hang