Squirrel Thoughts

When Zach started law school last fall, we went down to the Iron Horse one evening for a “meet and greet” of sorts. I happened to recognize one of his classmate’s names from the local weekly he wrote for before he started school, and I’d also heard a lot about him because he was my co-worker’s neighbor/friend.

Wanna be my fwiend!?!? Pease!!!!

So, when Zach introduced me to him, instead of saying something normal, like “Hi, nice to meet you,” I proceeded to spew off the facts I’d acquired. The convo went something like this (names have been changed to protect the innocent parties involved):

“Hi, I’m Allison, Zach’s girlfriend.” Hand-shaking commences.

“Hi, I’m Jordan. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh yeah, you’re Jordan Freeman!”

“Yeah…” Withdraws hand.

“You used to write for the Independent!”

“Yeah, I did … ” Begins to eye me suspiciously.

“And you live next to Brenda! She’s my co-worker.”

“Uhh, yeahh, I do.” Starts to slowly back away when he realizes I know his last name, his most recent employer and where he lives despite having met him approximately nine seconds ago.

To hear Zach describe it, “you could see the look on his face grow more and more concerned with each new revelation.” Despite this, I just kept plunging ahead.

And this, my friends, is how you Squire someone.

I realized soon after how awkward I was and how uncomfortable I must have made this poor guy feel, but it was much, much too late. I had effectively freaked him out. I learned my lesson and it hasn’t happened since, but Zach still likes to make fun of me for it and call doing such a thing to someone “Squiring.”

Now, the term has resurfaced in the Squires-Franz household, after we attended another law school function last week (um, yeah, that’s apparently all I do now), and Zach introduced me to a different classmate. And you wanna know what happened next? He Squired me!!

“Hi, I’m Allison.”

“Hi, I’m Fred. You look familiar.”

“I do?”

“Oh yeah, you’re Allison Squires!”

“Yeah!”

“You used to work for the Kaimin!”

“Yeah!”

“You know Mary Lou Smith! She’s one of my good friends!”

“Yeah!”

Squ-IRED!

(You may notice my reaction was not nearly as freaked out as the guy I Squired. This is because I’m used to dealing with such awkwardness in everyday life, so it really doesn’t faze me when others let it slip.)

So, there are two things you can take away from my post on these experiences: a) There’s a new verb out there — “to Squire” — and you should use it every chance you get so it catches on; and 2) If you want to make friends and have people think you’re at least somewhat normal, never, EVER do the aforementioned verb to them. Just don’t.