So the scene is set. It's a gorgeous summer-ish kind of day in the City of Angels. I'm hanging out with one of my best friends in the whole world who I haven't really gotten a chance to hang out with for almost two years because we've been on opposite coasts. We're wandering around Westwood after having gotten our palms read (it's an inside thing -- the last time we saw each other, we were in San Francisco together and got a tarot card reading and we were both at important junctures in our lives, now we're once again at important junctures and we're hanging out again two years later). And we passed by a flower shop and I dragged her inside to pick out some flowers because I knew she was looking for white roses but hadn't found any, and I told her I was buying her some as a "finished first year of business school" present.

The girl in the flower shop was really, really cute. And as she was putting together the bouquet for my friend, I noticed she had a tattoo on her lower back that was in Hebrew (which in and of itself is odd, since it's against Jewish law to mark your body like that), which I asked her to confirm what I thought the translation was, and I was correct. We chatted for a bit at the counter while I was paying for the flowers for my friend, and she was really nice as well as cute. So at my friend's pushing and urging, I went back into the store as we were leaving Westwood and said to the flower girl, "My friend insisted that I come back in here and ask you out to dinner." (Okay, kind of cheesy, but it was the only thing I could think of on short notice that would be clever.) She looked at me with this shocked expression on her face and said, "What??" I repeated, "My friend insisted that I come back in here and ask you out to dinner sometime." I think it took her a little bit to process what I said because it wasn't the normal introduction of "I'd like some flowers please."

She looked at me and stuttered out something along the lines of, "Wow... that's really nice of you... wow... ummm... I'm... uhhh..." I jumped in with, "You're seeing someone." She said, "Yeah, I'm actually living with someone. But that's so nice of you to ask, thanks..." And I thanked her and walked out.

Despite the fact that I went down in some stupendous amount of flames, my friend still thought that was awesome because I had the balls to go in there and ask the flower girl out like that. (Her expression, not mine.) I felt the appropriate amount of humiliation at being shot down, and proceeded to rant about how easy it was for women because guys are usually the ones who have to go up and make the first move -- at least my friend agreed on that one.

My first rejection by an angelic Angeleno. I'll mark it down on my calendar. And for that matter, my reading said I'd have three kids -- two boys & a girl, that I'd be going on a trip soon, and that I'd be getting some very good news somewhere between May 11-13. The odd thing is that she was pretty much spot on as far as reading my personality, and my friend agreed.