I invited a friend out for Saturday night. We’re going to meet at a historic/touristy part of town. I haven’t told her what we’re doing, but I told her to dress warm, be hungry, and bring an orange magic marker.
Me and my big mouth.
The dress warm part was for the horse and buggy ride. The be hungry part was, of course, for dinner.
The orange magic marker thing was a joke. When I told her so, she got really upset. She’s expecting something awesome. She’s bringing one.
Ideas?!?
If it can tie into the buggy ride, Rudolph, or her birthday, all the better.
Here’s one stolen from Penn & Teller’s book “How To Play With Your Food”:
When you’re at the restaurant, get up to go to the bathroom. Find your waiter. Pay off your bill in advance plus a generous tip so that they’ll play along. Brief them on what they have to do:
At some point, borrow your friend’s magic marker and do your best doodle on your napkin. Go for the gusto.
The waiter comes over, looks at the sketch and says “That’s pretty nice, do you mind if I show it to the manager?”
Waiter comes back a few minutes later and says “The manager is a big fan of your work, would you mind if we keep this? I know it’s not payment enough but he’ll comp your meal.”
Have fun. Look at your friend as if to say “Gosh, that seems more than fair.” Act famous yet modest. Sign your work.
Your friend thinks you are a god(dess). Make sure to leave before she can start asking a lot of questions.
ETA - make your sketch the buggy. Or Rudolph. That’ll tie it together. Plus it’s her birthday so I’m sure you were going to buy her dinner anyhow, right?
You can also use this to set up a scavenger hunt for her. When you get to the restaurant (I assume you are eating first) pull the waiter aside and give him an envelope and a tip and tell him that when your date puts an orange marker on the table to walk over and silently hand her the envelope and take the marker away. In the envelope should be a clue that leads her somewhere else where there is another clue, etc. After 3 or 4 clues have it take her to where the horse and buggy ride will be.
When she presents you with an orange marker, explain that you didn’t mean an orange-colored magic marker… duh… you meant a marker specifically designed for marking oranges. Any idiot would know that. What on earth are you supposed to do with an orange-colored magic marker? Then tell her that she’s ruined everything, spit on the ground in disgust, and walk away without ever looking back.
OR bring with you every other color of marker except orange and turn it into some hokey completion gesture. Then draw on the walls of the restaurant.
I can only surmise by the clues that you will be in downtown Chicago. After your fancy (Italian Village?) dinner, horse & buggy (Watertower Place?) ride, tell her that the orange in her marker signifies the next step in the journey, conveniently off an orange line CTAstop. There’s a few good choices.
You are way off in your geography, but your directions are spot on.
There’s an orange line on Boston’s MBTA. It goes by her place. Hmm…
Naw. Too suggestive, too soon.
But you guys have given me the idea of a map. I could draw a couple of stick figures representing us, maybe holding hands or whatever. I could maybe draw in some iconic clues, sort of like pbbth’s scavenger hunt idea. Look for a big clock. Custom House? Then look for a tea kettle. The Steaming Kettle? (Or whatever it is.) As we complete the map, we go from place to place, ending in a top hat. She plans on wearing one, maybe. The buggy drivers wear them too, I think. I can lead her, through a drawing of symbolism, to the buggies.
Bring a map and go for a “walking tour.” Have her trace the streets where you walked… and make sure you walk in a heart-shape. (I would suggest a birthday cake shape, but that’s a bit much…)
I assumed you were wanting the **color healing ** advice contained in Healing the Sacral Chakra with orange color/. I assume you know that the Sacral or Svadhisthana Chakra is located at the genitals.
Tell her you plan to start a national craze by drawing Bozo hair on all the stick figures in the school crossing signs.
(The other ideas are better, but this one is simple. Or you could just remember all the suggestions and give her a different answer each time she asks.)
tdn, is she or you of the breed of Bostonian who’s into their Irish heritage? You could scribble a broad green stripe onto a white t-shirt that you wear under a button-down shirt. On the buggy ride, open your shirt and tell her you need help finishing your Irish flag t-shirt.
Or tell her that you were considering growing some facial hair, but you want to see what it would look like. Ask her to draw a “super-sexy” beard and/or mustache on your face. (You can remove almost all magic marker from skin with rubbing alcohol or baby oil, and the residual orange color won’t be very visible on skin.)
Do you always take everything so seriously? :smack:
Anyway, I think using the orange marker on a map and tying it in with an orange present (maybe some knit gloves or a hat) would be awesome. And overall, I think doing anything with it at all marks you as too cool.
Edit: Just now realized this was for yesterday. So never mind.
Too bad. Whenever the 49’s played in Chicago, they’d paint the scrotum on the statue of General Sheridan’s horse on Belmont Ave. bright orange. You could have suggested she touch it up.
You could pull a misdirect that would cause her to forget about the marker entierly. Buy one of those metal seive eyepatches and tape it over your eye. Explain that you wanted to make a good first impression, and you were going after stray nose hairs with a mainicure scissors. Tell her it slipped and scratched your cornea. From her reaction, you’ll be able to tell a lot about who she really is.
She searched desperately for an orange magic marker, but couldn’t find one. She instead brought a weird little orange ball thing.
We walked around Quincy Market for a bit, then went to where the buggy was supposed to be. But it wasn’t there. Instead we stood under what we were told was the tallest Christmas tree in North America. (Google disagrees, as it turns out. But it is freakin’ HUGE.) At long last the buggy showed up, but someone had it reserved. I made a reservation for it for half an hour later, so we went to a bar for a beer and an appetizer.
The buggy ride was cold, but awesome. They had a blanket that we could get under, which made things rather cozy. We went all around downtown, past the State House, past the Commons, past the “official” Christmas tree – in fact, it was almost like a tour of trees.
Then we ate at the Salty Dog, which I thought was so so but she thought was fantastic. Then we walked through the new park that used to be the Big Dig, then down to the waterfront, then part of the way back to her place.
