Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

stepping on grubs

After work on Wednesday, Rafi and I went to the Plutztown Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Festival. I picked him up. His eyes were a little pink, and when we got to the fairground, he got me a snow cone and bought himself the largest available turkey leg and consumed it within the space of fifteen minutes.

I didn't realize it at the time, but he was high.

"So, Rafi," I said. "What kind of music do you like?"

I was prepared to tell him that Smash Mouth was the best ska band. Or even that ska was the best genre of music (now this I truly believed, despite this opinion becoming controversial post-1999). I wanted to start an argument, insult him savagely, and kill his attraction to me. Squash this grub for good.

"I like polka," Rafi said.

I choked on my snow cone.

"Listen to that," he bounced his head to the accordion behind him. "That's a sick melody." He made strange humming noises and squeezed the air beside him. In the process, he startled a sixty-something woman a few feet left of us. I watched her expression shift from surprised to snarky. She smirked at me over her sunburned shoulders.

            Great, I thought, even Grams thinks my love life's a joke.

"What are you doing?" I hissed, and tugged on Rafi's arm.

"Air accordion dude," Rafi grinned. His gaze drifted as I pulled him away from the polka band. "So, you're an astrophysicist. Like, what's the chance there's an alternate universe where douchebags play air accordion instead of air guitar?"

"There's been some interesting research on the possibility of a multiverse-" I said, before Rafi began making the same humming noise. I was sure he annoyed the crowd I weaved us through. "-would you quit that? You're acting like a -"

"I bet there's a multiverse," Rafi lowered his eyelids. "I bet somewhere, somehow accordions are getting dudes laid."

"That's outside the realm of scientific possibility." I searched for a depopulated patch of fairground, but there were grandmas and history-teachers and chubby, red-faced children as far as I could see.

"Yo," Rafi's eyes bugged, "why should this stay an alternate universe thing? You think my air accordion will make ya drop your panties tonight?"

"I highly doubt that," I said.

"You haven't seen my rendition of 'Ignition (Remix),'" Rafi said. "It brings all the girls to my yard."

Before I could even argue, Rafi again commenced his humming and air-squeezing. The noise he made somehow sounded like an accordion version of "Ignition (Remix)." I didn't want to be impressed.

"What was that?" I feigned indifference.

"Bounce Bounce Bounce Bounce Bounce," Rafi patted the air and bounced on his tip-toes like an R&B king from my childhood.

"You couldn't even tell that was even a song you were doing." I lied. "It was just kazoo noises."

"Nah?" Rafi seemed genuinely surprised. "I thought I was pretty good."

"You were embarrassing." I said.

"Panties aren't dropping?" he shook his head.

"You are less sexy than you were before the air accordion. The panties are never dropping." That should do it, I thought. He'll definitely start to think I'm a bitch now.

"Wow," he smiled his usual, easy smile. "Tough crowd. I like that."

And impossibly, he took my hand and led me to the Ferris wheel.