A Story About Dave and a Girl Named Claudia

  After Lori and my other friend Eric’s relationship fizzled out, Lori was on the open market and started dating a few guys from school. One evening she was supposed to go on a date with a guy named Dave she wasn’t sure about. They had hung out before, I think, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about him. She wanted me to stop by the Old Chicago they were meeting at about an hour or two after their ‘date’ started. I thought it was weird, but I agreed.

  When I first got to Old Chicago’s I did not see them, so I bought a beer at the bar and walked around. After a brief period of time I found them at a table. He was a nice enough guy, and I tried to remain low-key while they talked. I felt weird feeling like a chaperone, so I just watched the hockey game playing on the TV. While at the table I ordered one more beer before we decided to leave. Dave insisted on paying, which was very nice of him, but his card was declined. It was embarrassing and awkward to be there for this. I offered to pay, but he still insisted and said he’d be right back. He was gone for quite a while. Long enough for Lori and I to crack a few rounds of jokes about the situation. Finally he came back and he paid with cash. Afterwards, he wanted us to go back to his place and hang for a little bit. Actually, it was his parent’s place and it was only a block or so away, so we agreed.

  He quickly showed us around the place and introduced us to his parents. Lori noticed some sort of Tae-bo thing and made a quick reference to it. He got all excited and told us how into Tae-bo he was that he bought all the Tae-bo items including sweatshirts, wristbands and head bands. Yeah, the exercise itself is enough for us but he kept going on. As we went upstairs I made a comment about an Annastasia poster he had on the wall. He responded with “wow. It’s so great having intellectual conversations with you guys. I can never have them with my friends. I don’t remember what I said, but making a comment about a cartoon movie poster never made ‘intellectual’ in my book. Lori and I just looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

  I think Lori may have seen him once or twice after that. He was a nice enough guy, but I don’t know how much the two of them had in common. And as far as making a good impression, he made us laugh, but it was more at him than with him.

  During this time, a couple of my co-workers left the bank and we replaced them with other people. One of the people who left was the New Accounts rep, Amale. When she left, they promoted me. Someone I was sad to see go, was Jennifer. She had gotten another job that paid a little more and at the time her and her husband needed the money. Marijana and Shawn also moved on.

  Because of the changes in back room operations and the fact that our bank was growing, it became impossible to do many operations in-house. The day came when we outsourced our “statement processing” to a third party vendor. We celebrated with Champaign that evening. It also meant that the older lady, Geri, would need to work up at the teller line to stay with the bank. She was nervous but took to it pretty well. She was hysterical on the teller line, she quickly got to know every customer who came into the bank. Everything that was going on in their lives, every child’s name… everything. There was one guy who was either Pakistani or Indian named Sunil. I forget his last name, but Geri found it hard to pronounce. So she just proclaims to him that she was just going to call him ‘Sunflower’, from then on she would call him Sunflower and he was okay with that. She was one of those elderly ladies that were so sweet, they could get away with that.

  They also hired a girl named Claudia that moved up from a small town in the middle of Colorado. We hit it off pretty well. She claimed I was the only one who was really nice to her when she first started and made her feel welcome. She had a son and was going to be marrying the father of her child later that year or the next year. Claudia ended up becoming a really good friend though the years, but I remember thinking when I first met her, ‘for someone with strong convictions and personality, she sure has some insecurity issues.’

  On a more personal level, I got a phone call out of the blue from Mary. She was someone I thought I’d never hear from again. I asked her how in the world she got my number and she said she called information. I had told her once that I was moving to Colorado and she remembered that, but that was years and years ago and it was to get her not to look for me when she was in New York anymore. You live, you learn.

  When I told Lori, I informed her that this means she will call on a relatively consistant basis for a few weeks and then stop calling for 6 months. That is exactly what happened. She called the next day. Lori, as a favor to me, pretended to by my jealous girlfiend who scolded her and told her never to call anymore. She called me the next day to tell me how sorry she was fro getting me in trouble with my ‘girlfriend’, so you can see how effective that was…