Time For a Grope Hug

Last night, I redefined the word “embarrassing” when I accidentally groped a female friend.

Yes, it was an accident. I swear. One that I immediately confessed to Tara.

We had met up with our friends, Mark and Kara, for dinner. (If you think it’s a bit odd that Mark and Tara hang out with Mark and Kara, you are not alone. Audrey is still skeptical they actually exist. And the similarities don’t end with our names. Tara and Kara are the same age, and both are with guys in their mid-40s named Mark. Whoa. Mind blown). Anyway, we’d gone to Ava Gene’s in Portland to celebrate (the other) Mark’s birthday. This is the type of place that is dressy by Portland standards, meaning you actually have to wear long pants. It was also named Restaurant of the Year by Portland Monthly so, as you can imagine, it’s quite popular. And quite delicious. And quite expensive. It takes at least three weeks to get reservations (ours were made over a month ago), and even then you’re bound to end up seated at an odd time. Like 8:00. Which is fine; we’re used to eating later, and it was Saturday night. No harm done. The food was very good, even if we couldn’t pronounce half of what we ordered, and the conversation lively. We didn’t get out of there until after 10 PM. So we said our goodbyes, and hugged Kara. Only when I did so, my left arm was up around her shoulder, but my right arm somehow ended up lower. I think I was aiming for her waist, but Kara is pretty tall, so my sense of spatial relations was all off. I thought I was patting her back but discovered I had a handful of ass instead.

This is one of those things that could only happen to me.

When you find yourself unexpectedly cupping somebody’s ass, you have to be cool about it. Recoiling in horror is rude. But lingering sends the wrong message. So I gave it another little pat, pretending I didn’t know what I was touching, and hoping all along I wouldn’t get slapped.

Fortunately, I did not. Neither of us said anything. On the way to our car I told Tara what had happened, and naturally she laughed at me while opining that the entire incident was “hilarious.”

“Oh, the perils of being short,” she said.

“I’m not short!” I said defensively, looking my wife directly in the eye while standing on my tiptoes. “It’s just that SHE is TALL.”

OK, I wasn’t really standing on my tiptoes. I do have a couple of inches on Tara (though she’s right in that the NBA would never have come knocking on my door).

So, I would like to publicly apologize to Kara for the accidental groping. It was purely unintentional, I swear. And I hope she doesn’t actually read this blog post (though she has visited on occasion, so you never know).

The honey mascarpone gelato, by the way, was smooth, creamy, and delicious. Because I want to end this story on a sweet note.