Can I help you with anything else?

That, my friends, is a very dangerous question. Let me tell you why... So, as many of you know, my Monday nights are currently dominated by my second job at Deseret Book. I don't complain though as the perks of discounts and some extra income outweigh the negatives. However, this week provided one of the best encounters yet. As usual, I was minding my own business putting away newly arrived books when a male customer in a red shirt entered the store and immediately made eye contact with me. Since retail experience has trained me to be pro-active, I dutifully walked up and asked if I could help him find something. He responded he was looking for a DVD, so I led him to the movie section and quickly helped him find the correct one. As I was about to leave him to browsing, I asked as an after-thought, "Can I help you with anything else?" Bad move. The moment it left my lips I knew this was going to go somewhere I didn't want it to. He looked at me thoughtfully for half a second, cocked his head, and said "Yeah actually, maybe I could take you out for dinner or something sometime?" YIKES! Now let me just preface this boys with a word to the wise: Asking a girl out who you have only met 2 minutes prior is NOT socially appropriate. Ever. I don't care if you're the smoothest most attractive operator around, it's just not a good idea. So, this being my philosophy, I wasn't about to cave out of pity. After an awkward moment of silence I smiled, said I was flattered, but no. Truth be told, I felt pretty guilty (not to mention uncomfortable), but I would rather be honest than misleading. So he wished me a good day and made a quick exit to the register. Now if the story ended here, it would be sad enough, but it doesn't. About 15 minutes later I made my way up to the registers to look up something on the computer and had my cute co-worker Amy give me a look and say quietly as she rang up a customer "Oh I have a story for you" to which my eyes widened and I replied "Oh-ho I'm sure you do, as I have the same one." Turns out literally minutes after getting shot down by me, the man had approached her and done the same thing. The difference was, she is a nicer person than I am and ended up giving her number to him even though she had no desire whatsoever of going on a date with him. So, props to you red shirt man...I don't think I would ever have the nerve to ask out someone who I don't even know, and then straight out the gate of being denied, go and repeat the process 5 minutes later. At least he had a 50% success rate though, right? Oh Provo.