Coffee shops and babe-magnets

I was 18-years old…

Sitting in the drive-thru…

Sun hitting my arm as I waited for my turn in line…

Coffee aromas wafting through my open van window…

I was getting ready to ask a barista out on a date.

We had met outside of the coffee shop and even though I didn’t drink coffee at the time, I started buying coffee just to see her. Now I’m addicted to caffeine for some reason.

Anyway, back to the drive-thru.

I worked up the nerve…

Pulled up to the window…

Turned my head to say “what’s up?” in a cool guy voice…

Took my foot off the clutch (did I mention my van was a stick shift?)...

The van lurched forward 10 ft and stalled out. Just as I made eye contact with the cute barista. 

I had forgotten to shift out of 1st gear. So when I let the clutch out, the van went right back into gear.

How embarrassing.

Now, in that moment, I had 2 options:

1. Put the van into 1st gear, drive forward, and never visit that coffee shop again. 

2. Drop into reverse, swallow my pride, and see if I could salvage the moment at all.

Without knowing how it was going to play out, I popped into reverse. 

After everyone in the shop stopped laughing, I asked her out. 

She said yes and I took her to Bob Evans on her lunch break (hopeless romantic, I am).

So the moral of the story is: tolerate uncertainty.

You don’t know how any situation is going to play out. 

Most of the time it won’t be like the movie that is playing in your head. 

Just like the course of American history was forever altered because the wind changed direction in Brooklyn. (Battle of Long Island in the Revolutionary War, look it up), no one knows how it’s going to play out.

So take the uncomfortable route. Bet on yourself.

Post that story, hit send on the video, and record that podcast. 

Worst case, it sucks and you’ll get better on the next one. The internet has the memory of an elephant with dementia.

Here is a picture of me in my really cool van at age 17.

I used to call it the “babe-magnet".”

What a nerd.

See you tomorrow,

Swanagan “cool guy” Ray

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