The Virgin grows a ball

#18 Never Have I Ever: Let a Magic 8 Ball make my decisions

Foreplay: I wasn't expecting to do this particular D.V. task today but it was apparent when I found myself badgering Whiskey Sour about Blackjacket.

I had texted Blackjacket a noncommittal message the day after thanking him for helping me cross something off my list, not expecting a response. But less than 5 minutes later he answered: Of course! We'll have to work on some other things on that list. Dude, he used an exclamation point! Just like this one! My god, just look at it!

I responded with something aggressively witty. He dorkily LOLed. The conversation eventually died off soon after he suggested we get together another time to discuss the Oscars. But OMG!

I told myself I'd hold out until Wednesday to contact him again but I've never been one for patience. And if I was going to concede, I might as well go all in and ask him out, right? I incessantly pestered Whiskey Sour all morning. Is it too soon to text him today? What time should I do it? What's a good date idea? Oh god, am I putting too much thought behind this? Will he think I'm crazy?!

"Alright," Whiskey Sour sighed, "Now I understand why guys do the asking. Girls are way too analytical."

The Down and Dirty: In my time of need, I turned to the Magic 8 Ball. Alright, so it isn't an official Magic 8 Ball if you want to get technical about it.

I'm sort of embarrassed to use it, not because I'm letting a toy make my decisions, but because it's a Magic Date Ball. I'm not even fucking kidding. It's pink with "Date Ball" swirled across the top and comes equipped with valley-girl accented answers. It'll do only because I found it at work and am not willing to shell out money for this experiment.

As I gave it a hearty shake, I asked the appropriately named Date Ball, "Should I ask Blackjacket out today?"

It coyly responded with: I'm cool with that! ♥

Yes, with heart and all. Oh Jesus. It was like asking for words of wisdom from a Hooter's waitress. Maybe trusting a pink ball filled with glitter wasn't the best idea after all.

But then my coworker asked what I was doing shaking the ball so violently. I explained and he said I shouldn't base my life off of an inanimate object. I reminded him that he was the one who inspired this D.V. task.

"Why did I do that?" he asked while giving the ball a good rattle.

"That wasn't a yes or no question."

"I know. I just wanted to show you how -- Whoa!" I peered into the dark abyss of answers: No question! ♥

"Dude! It knew that wasn't a question! This Magic 8 Ball is omnipotent!"

For the rest of the day I got it to perkily answer a medley of questions such as: Is 6:24 a good time to text Blackjacket [sidebar: I'm neurotic with numbers, ok!]? (♥ It's lookin' good!) Should I eat these chips? (Sounds good to me! ♥) Should I go for a run after work? (Yeah, right!)

Man, this ball is good.


The Afterglow: This was actually a really fun experiment. It helped take a load of my mind and showed me that I tend to over-analyze most situations -- or just that I feel more confident making decisions when I can blame something/someone else. But I'll go with the more mature answer in this case.