by Jordan Berardi

THE QUIRK: I like talking to strangers

I’m going to cut straight to the point; talking to strangers has its perks. I’m not sitting here encouraging you to make Omegle a bookmark on your computer (seriously, please don’t, that site should be illegal). All I’m saying is a casual “hello” or a simple wave is not all bad. Just because I like making conversation with cashiers doesn’t mean I’d go hop in a white van with a bag of candy hanging out the window. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of dangerous people out there, and that’s not to be taken lightly.

Rewind three weeks. It’s Friday, the night of Blue and White. After a long, strenuous, overbearing two day school week, I didn’t go home and put on my brightest Nike shorts and a bro tank. Nope. Instead, I went to Happy Dragon (honestly, such a jovial dragon), a Chinese restaurant with Mattie O’Boyle and my mom.

Fast forward an hour and a half and after dropping my mom off at home, me and Mattie are sitting at the Quik Trip at 103rd. After following two boys home to their house and ultimately deciding to end our stalking adventure, we thought one thing: coning. Now, there are a few different kinds of coning. Option number one: go to McDonalds, order, pay, and when they hand you your cone, grab it by the ice cream, look completely stunned, and drive away stone faced. Option number two: Instead of grabbing it by the ice cream, grab it by the cone like a civilized person, shove it into your forehead screaming unicorn, and drive away. If you laugh at any point, it’s done, over, you did it wrong and you should be ashamed. Which way did Mattie and I choose? Neither.

We got our cone, pulled out onto Holmes. I did not swipe my tongue across that soft serve like an educated lady; instead I held it out the window as Mattie drove. Nearing the first stoplight, I made a, literally, life altering decision. I was going to ask people – strangers – if they wanted my cone. See, here’s the thing; I like being the reason people go home and say to their husbands, wives, kids, godmothers, frogs, etc. “Guess what just happened to me?” For all I know that man who I just asked if he wanted my cone could have broken up with his girlfriend of five years and was going home to eat Ben and Jerry’s on his couch. Instead, because of me, he calls his ex-girlfriend, laughing about what just happened, they realize they’re destined to be together, and they get married. Now, I realize the above won’t happen each time, but whatever.

Back to our night. At this point the ice cream is dripping down the side of my hand, making a thick coat of white goop. While passing Center High School on Holmes, a man reached out of his car as if to grab it, smiling. See, he was a gem. Next, a man tried to snap a picture for Instagram, after asking him if he wanted my cone he simply, and politely replied, “Oh no, I just wanted a picture!” About a mile down the road I asked a nice looking chap if he wanted my cone to which he replied, “Oh, no thank you.” See, strangers have manners.

After the nice boy previously mentioned, my cone was a goner. The side of Mattie’s car was layered with soft serve, my hand was sticky, and my arm was tired. But long story short, we went to another McDonald’s, did it all over again. When that cone was gone, we did it again. After opting out of a fourth cone, we decided to get a noodle, like the ones you use in a pool, a styrofoam noodle. We purchased that and did circles up and down Ward Parkway with the noodle poking out of the sunroof while we screamed Adele, Beyonce, Aly and Aj, etc.

So call it what you’d like, I think it’s an admirable quirk of mine. I don’t want you to go out talking to strangers alone, all I’m saying is giving a wave at a stoplight isn’t half bad. Make a fool of yourself, be silly, crazy, ridiculous, weird, I don’t care. Just do something risky, it’s pretty exhilarating.

Mattie is reading this right now, just to make sure I don’t put any false statements in here and because frankly it was hard picking the right words to do that night justice. Next week’s blog is literally already being written and I’m so excited for it. Honestly, set your alarm on your phone. If you have an iPhone, please, I’m begging, make the alarm sound for my blog the duck quacking. I honestly love it so much I sometimes listen to it for fun.