Andy sat in his Lazy Boy recliner, stroking his puppy Blaine who lay curled up next to him. They watched Food Network together every Saturday morning before lunch. The same show, the same time. Andy enjoyed his routine Saturday morning until he heard a truck pull up outside of his apartment. He didn’t think much of it until he heard a ruckus coming from outside. Andy got up from his recliner and went over to his window to observe what was going on down there. To Andy’s surprise, he saw a moving truck being unloaded. Andy thought to himself, “I didn’t even know anybody moved out.”
“Hey Blaine, maybe they will have a little dog to be your girlfriend,” Andy joked with his dog. Blaine let out a sigh and crawled back in the recliner, by himself this time. Although Andy had never had a girlfriend in his life, he tended to make jokes about his friends not having girlfriends. With Andy’s good looks, his family always wondered what kept the ladies away from him. Nobody could understand his fear of talking to girls, since Andy displayed characteristics of such a sweet guy.

Every few minutes or so, Andy would go back to his window to see if he could identify his new neighbor. It seemed as if the movers were the only people in the parking lot, until finally a little silver car pulled up next to the moving truck. Andy kept his eyes locked on the silver car. The driver shuffled around with bags and boxes in her car and then finally exited her vehicle. Andy felt as if he was witnessing a movie scene when he saw the woman get out of the car. Her luscious, dark brown hair blew in the wind as she shook the hair out of her face. The typical scene when a pretty woman showed up on the screen. Her black, long sleeve shirt contrasted nicely with the pale, white glow of her skin. Her jeans hugged her long legs as if they were made just for them. She wore a small innocent smile across her face. Andy’s jaw dropped at her beauty. He believed it to be love at first sight. “Blaine! Do you see this girl?” Andy pointed out the window. Blaine didn’t seem to care. He just curled up into a tighter ball, making himself comfortable on the recliner. “Maybe I should go talk to her,” Andy thought to himself. In reality, Andy knew he had a slim chance of successfully talking to a woman that pretty.
Last time he attempted to make conversation with a girl, it didn’t go over so well. Andy went to a coffee shop in downtown Minneapolis and saw an attractive girl. Andy wanted to offer to buy her a cup of coffee, so he prepped himself on what to say. Shaking, he stood up, walked over to the girl, opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, and then got a confused look on his face. The words would not come out of Andy’s mouth. He tried to speak again, but still no words would come out. He stood in front of the woman trying to speak until she walked out of the coffee shop, very frightened. After this incident, Andy could never work up the courage to talk to a woman he has never met.
Andy continued to “spy” on the woman with the silver car. He assumed she was the person moving into his apartment building since she obviously wasn’t a mover, and she was the only other person carrying boxes upstairs. Andy decided he would to talk to her, but he knew it would take a lot of preparation. To begin, Andy would need to practice a few pick up lines that this woman might find funny. “Maybe a cool, smooth first impression would seem better,” thought Andy. He believed the best way to practice his lines was to recite them aloud. Andy pretended Blaine was the girl and he sweet-talked his dog. “Ohh hey honey, you new around here?” Andy smoothly said to Blaine. Blaine went wide-eyed and shook his head from side to side. “Was it really that bad?” Andy whined. He took another stab at it. “If a thousand painters worked for a thousand years, they could not create a work of art as beautiful as you.” Blaine had the same reaction to this line as the previous one. Desperately wanting to make a good first impression of himself, Andy continued to search for the right words to say to this woman. Andy really struggled with words, but convinced himself he would eventually find the right ones.
Andy went back to his window and decided to talk to the woman from his apartment while she was in the parking lot. She obviously couldn’t hear him, which was exactly what Andy wanted. He looked at her through his living room window and tried to dig deep. Andy realized he needed to relate to her and just act like a down to earth person. So he said, “Hi. My name is Andy; I noticed you were carrying a lot of boxes. Could you use an extra hand?”
“Yes! That’s it!” yelled Andy. “That’s exactly what I am going to say to her. I better write that down on a notecard or something before I forget it.” Andy ran over to his desk, pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and wrote down his exact words from before. He actually made another copy of it, just incase something happened to the first one. That way he would have a back up and he wouldn’t crash and burn. Andy practiced his lines one more time, in front of Blaine this time, just to make sure it was perfect. Blaine seemed to approve of Andy’s line this time. He let out a nice happy bark and wagged his tail, which made Andy even more excited than before. The time had come for Andy to go talk to his lady. He needed to find some courage deep down inside of him because he would really need it. He didn’t want this to be an episode like the last time.
Andy took a deep breath, zipped up his sweatshirt, and walked out his front door. With his notecards in hand, he felt sweat beginning to form on his forehead, so he wiped it away with his sleeve. “Game time,” he whispered to himself. Andy walked to the elevator and pressed the down facing arrow. He planned on talking to her in the apartment lobby or in the parking lot, wherever he saw her first. Andy stepped into the elevator and pressed the number one button to go down to the first floor of the building. The elevator dinged and the doors opened on the first floor. Andy stepped off and became a little more nervous and a little less confident. He slowly walked forward and looked around to see if he could see her anywhere. “I can’t do this, I can’t do this anymore,” Andy panicked. He quickly turned around to head back upstairs to his apartment, but ran into somebody who was right behind him. A box full of belongings flew into the air and all over the floor. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!” Andy yelled as he quickly bent down to pick up the things on the floor. Andy’s eyes focused on the floor as he tried to pick up as many things as he could. As he looked up to apologize to the woman again, a smile came across his face. He had just run into the woman he wanted to talk to. “What are the chances?” Andy thought to himself.
After Andy finished putting everything back into the box, the two of them stood up simultaneously. “Thank you,” said the woman. “Could you use an extra hand with the rest of the boxes?” asked Andy, with no trace of nervousness. “That would be wonderful, thank you for offering!” They walked together to the truck to pick up some boxes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even introduce myself,” said Andy “I’m Andy.” “My name is Macie.” Said the woman. “Aw, what a cute name,” Andy thought to himself. The two of them made small talk as they walked together. Macie had said that she moved from Texas and didn’t really look forward to the frigid Minnesota winters. She talked about her job and her family, also about her puppy Bailey. Andy and Macie made it to Macie’s new apartment with the first set of boxes. Since Andy felt they were getting along pretty well, he decided to ask her one more thing, “Hey Macie, do you think you would want to go get dinner with me tonight? Not like as a date or anything. Just as friends of course.” “You know what Andy,” Macie paused for a moment, “I would love to.”