kid tested, mother approved.

Josh called one night after a show at the Berkeley Cafe. From the noise in the background, it was clear that he was still there. It was a joint show, and he was telling me about the other band.

"You remember them? We played at The Dive Bar with them?"

"Yeah, they have that lead singer who only has one shirt." So that probably wasn't fair, because I'd only ever seen the guy twice, but both times he was wearing the same orange shirt, a faux-vintage one advertising Kix. Maybe it was his lucky performance shirt or maybe he thought the faded orange really brought out the color of his eyes.

We'd discussed the guy before, side-by-side, hand-in-hand critics. The guy was admittedly more interesting than a lot of guys in rock bands. His band, well, whatever, I wasn't impressed, but left to his own devices, the guy was kind of entertaining. The best part of their show was their sound check. A lot of people have a syndrome that the minute their voice is amplified over a microphone, they become colossal idiots, but he managed to become more interesting. In fact, he was kind of boring in regular conversation. The guy was a showman. We decided that if he could ever figure out what was cool and latch onto it, the dude could probably be famous one day, and then he could buy all the orange shirts he wanted. He could wear a different orange shirt that looked the same every day.

"Yeah, that one. Hey, did he ever hit on you?"

Pause. That's an odd kind of jealous streak, to mention a guy and then ask if he'd ever hit on me. "What? No, why?"

"He was telling this story tonight about how they were playing with some other band somewhere and he was hitting on this girl. And then it got to the point where it got to the point, and then she tells him that she's other bands' bass player's girlfriend. I was just wondering if it was you."

"Nope, wasn't me."

"I figured it wasn't. You're taller than he is, and he wouldn't like that." Being taller was just one of the things that he would not like about me. This guy didn't strike me as the kind of guy who would hit on a girl who wore glasses.

"Yeah, plus, you know I would've managed to stutter out that I was your girlfriend before it got to the point where it got to the point." This is true. Whenever I suspect that I am being hit upon, I manage to bring up the boyfriend situation as quickly and lacking as much grace as possible.

"I just couldn't decide if he was trying to be ironic by telling the story when I was there."

"Nah, he's not the type to appreciate irony that heavy. He likes the little irony of the story itself, but to handle the massive irony of telling the story in front of whatever bass player would probably be more than he could take."

"Yeah, you're right."

"So it wasn't me."

"I figured it probably wasn't. You would have thought it hilarious and told me about it anyway."

"Also true."

"Oh, and he is wearing that shirt again."