Well-Behaved Monsters: chapter 39

By jasonmcgathey | Jason McGathey | 8 Oct 2025

Although we all characterize Dylan’s coworkers as friendly, but somewhat boring and lame, it’s possible that we just haven’t met the right ones yet. Without question some of the stories he tells us about those who’ve yet to cross our paths make such individuals sound as though they might liven up virtually any work atmosphere. Not that we necessarily want to meet all of these characters, mind you — like the kid who resembles nothing so much but a ticking homemade bomb, whom many “joke” seems as though he might come in and shoot up the place any day now. Up until the day some of them find some handwritten pages he accidentally left sitting by the community copy machine. In which he is in fact rambling at length about bringing in a bomb and blowing up the building, coworkers included.

After some tortured debate, they eventually decide to take their findings to the human resources lady. Who doesn’t exactly respond in a manner any of them would have guessed.

“Oh dear! I can’t get over the foul language this young man is using!” the somewhat elderly HR woman exclaims, in Dylan’s retelling. As he relates this story to us, I observe that this sounds like something straight out of a South Park episode. In fact the voice Dylan has chosen for this horrified female, whether coincidental or otherwise, sounds like Principal Victoria.

“Yeah, but he’s talking about bringing a bomb into here! And blowing up the building!”

“Ooh, I know, but the language!” she frets, shaking her head in horrified disapproval of this unruly pottymouth, “my, my, my!”

Yeah, we’re not exactly clamoring to hang out with that dude, who is given a verbal warning but otherwise continues to terrorize their workplace. Far more intriguing however is another coworker he’s told us quite a bit about, a semi-okay looking blonde chick who can’t seem to stay awake. She keeps falling asleep at the desk, though the official diagnosis is narcolepsy. That’s a pretty good one. Days where I stroll into work on three or four hours of sleep, I sometimes wonder if they would buy that excuse from a guy who is standing upright at a table cutting meat. Narcolepsy.

Well, in the name of scientific investigation, we are all but required to examine this girl in a little more detail. And not just that, but have her drive us to the laboratory in question, Triads Lounge. Because allegedly she doesn’t just nod off at the desk, but has flirted with doing so behind the wheel as well. The research team for this project consists of Dylan, Phil, and me, and although the subject is as reported a blonde, somewhat younger gal, marginally attractive enough to qualify for certain other scientific experiments, in a pinch, our findings are otherwise inconclusive. Additional testing is possibly required, but from the stool at my work station, she seems kind of spaced out in general, and suffering from an all around lack of motivation, leading me to suspect that narcolepsy is perhaps not an accurate diagnosis.

But as the weekend arrives, Friday night, somehow it’s the same old early middle aged blob of his coworkers with which we find ourselves kicking it. Many of them might only be in their thirties, actually, but the collective behavior makes them all seem much older. As for us, modifying our approach now to incorporate Marvin’s good line of bullshit theory, Dylan and I have adopted some intriguing concepts of late, the most recent of which is to finally employ that bit where we insist, upon meeting women in a bar, that we are both named Elvis.

Appearance wise, we have shifted into a not quite so ridiculous direction, however. As previously noted, this Hawaiian junk doesn’t fly in the wintertime — unless maybe it is just so ridiculous that it might work better? — meaning that funky hats alone are in order. Preparing to walk out the door, to meet these coworkers at some Mexican restaurant up the road from us, he is throwing on the tried and true Dr. Moreau classic (even though, come to think of it and keeping with the South Park references, I suppose it more closely resembles the one worn by the old mad scientist guy on that show), while I’m breaking out the light blue vinyl fishing hat, the Gilligan number, which has that zippered pouch on the side. One that I’ve taken to stuffing with a condom, a fit so snug it’s as though this were designed for such.

A layer deeper, I suppose we are both cleaner cut of late, however coincidentally, than we were during that halcyon, golden skied beach bum era. Alas, ‘twere but a memory, so distant, yet so recently passed, like some tropics sailed through and not to be seen again. I suspect Dylan might have gotten a haircut for that bust of a first date with Miranda, and as for me, I absolutely did at Jenna’s request, as she pretty much forced me to if I wished to continue associating with her. Clothing wise, by virtue of not wearing such ridiculous gear alone, we are therefore clad in more normal i.e. respectable attire, hats excepted.

These points make an immediate, apparent impact as he and I stroll into the second floor of this Mexican establishment, where his coworkers have commandeered one full corner. It’s basically the entire crew from that godforsaken Lake Erie trip, the weekend that was curiously memorable for so little of substance happening. As this entourage has already occupied four full booths, side by side, without any wiggle room to spare, he and I are forced to slide into a fifth one behind them. And yet we already feel like most of these women are blatantly checking us out more than they ever have, that some of the glances linger tellingly far too long — and will return this way more often than is customary as well.

At least, this is our initial impression. Though a few distant hellos and waves are sent in our direction, nobody drifts over to talk to us, apart from a five minute pitstop by Sally. This creates more questions than it does provide answers, however, leading Dylan to make some quick rounds swinging past a few souls that he knows, for a brief chat, and me to not even bother. By the time the eating portion of this dinner is concluded, he and I say screw this, and head downstairs to the bar for some Mexican beers and conversation that’s a trifle livelier.

We hit immediate paydirt — or at least some readily available topsoil — when it just so happens that there are two stools available to the immediate left of this perfectly doable pair of cougars. The spiky blonde haired look, tossed every which way, jagged points ever so slightly on the brink of toppling over, is very much in vogue with this demographic, and they are both rocking that look. Conceding that, while he’s the more socially fluid one once we get to know people, I nonetheless usually seem to perform better with cold contacting total strangers, Dylan lets me have the seat nearest them. And yet this seating arrangement might not have mattered. It seems this duo is just lubricated enough by drink to immediately cheer our arrival and begin chatting our ear off unprompted.

“What’s in the hat?” the one nearest me eventually asks, tapping the zippered pouch, just as Dylan and I are receiving our second round down here.

“A condom.”

“Oh really now. What, are we feeling optimistic tonight?” she questions.

“Every night,” I tell her with a grin.

As though not believing me and the donut shaped outline itself not a big enough giveaway, she unzips the pouch to extract the object in question. “It is…a condom,” she marvels, turning the shiny gold package over and over in her hand. Then shows her friend. “Hey look, it’s a condom! He keeps a condom in his hat! And it’s a Magnum, no less!”

“Ooooh!” the friend says, bending backwards in her chair to look over at me.

Yet for every successful gambit, we are learning that just as many or more backfire. That piece of this extended performance art might be a keeper, but not so much some of these other sketches. And it seems we overstep our bounds, blowing this potential lead, by keeping the pedal down and continuing to perpetuate this nonsense. Like by insisting that both of us are named Elvis.

“Get out of here!” the one closest to me says.

“No, really. That’s how we became such good friends.”

“Yeah, we were the only two Elvises in our entire hometown,” Dylan concurs, somewhat slurry by now as he switched to a margarita for round number three.

“Let’s see some ID, then!” the other woman challenges.

“Yeah, let’s see some ID!”

“Eh, well, uh, heh heh…,” I demur.
“Yeah, that’s what we thought…”

So clearly, we need to get better at calling audibles on the fly. Annihilating glorious prospects over an insistence upon this script was stupid. These ruses can get exceedingly elaborate, as we learned with the wedding rings, and it’s best to keep matters simple. How far were we willing to take that, anyway? Crafting bogus IDs to pick up chicks might be hilarious, and even mighty useful, but that’s a bit overboard even for us. The whole point after all was to assemble a stable of women without a ton of effort. Regarding tonight, though, they lose interest from here and eventually dip off into the night, rebuffing a request for obtaining their digits.

And yet none of this ultimately matters, for the night unexpectedly proves productive anyway. Despite my total lack of trying upstairs — which in a sense, only confirms this hypothesis, that we should exert far less energy, not more, in attempting to pick up women — I will wake up the next morning to read one of the most jarring emails this odyssey will produce. It’s from Debbie, of all people, whom I’d only ever met up on Put-In-Bay, and was present at the Mexican restaurant earlier, though I never even spoke to her. But she has my address from the group chat Sally set up, to coordinate those plans this summer, and late last night, she put it to use:

A man may sometimes be forgiven the kiss to which he is not entitled, but never the kiss he has not the initiative to claim.

This is it, the entirety of her message. Though obviously a quote lifted from somewhere, one whose meaning is quite apparent. Even so, I like the mystery here. It’s an intriguing angle and I am compelled enough to carefully craft a response. Coming from someone who is attempting to answer the phone less and less, and almost never initiate contact with a phone call, this angle is also, unbeknownst to her, playing right into my hands. This thought of arranging hookups via email is almost too salivating to even fully believe.

But this former cowboy doesn’t want to flip his wagon in the path before his horse. There remain innumerable ghost towns to pass through between gold mines A and B. She might consider my message asinine or — all the more likely — was possibly half drunk when sending hers, and might have already begun mentally backpedaling away from it. So though I attempt striking a balance between remaining vague, via nebulous excuses that involve the words “sidetracked” and “chaos” to explain why I didn’t even speak to her, and then nonetheless moving forward from here, as always, the Send button is hit without quite knowing how somebody might respond. Especially a connection as slight as ours is up to this point.

Much to my surprise, a somewhat furious dialogue opens up between us from here. Although even so, I’m not quite sure how to take it. Somewhere along the line, this turns into a discussion about possibly meeting up with her and a bunch of friends on the forthcoming Friday night, for a planned group outing…and although she did not send Dylan any similar fortune cookie type pickup line, Debbie does begin copying him on this invite as well, explaining that it’s just a casual gathering, out watching some band, and she thought of us. So my guess is that this lands somewhere in the vortex of her still having an interest in me, though downplaying what was probably an alcohol related burst of forthrightness, while further hedging her bets in propositioning Dylan too — with whom she would surely not object to hooking up also.

I agree to see what I can do, though making no promises. And the dilemma in this situation is not strategic caginess for once, but that I already have plans to do something with Jenna. At only about four months into her pregnancy, she continues to work, and this is the only off day we have in common this week. Callous or not, what I’m now hoping for is that we can enjoy our charming little couples outing in the afternoon, she’ll wear out fairly early, and I can dip out to meet up with Debbie’s entourage. Particularly as Dylan has already stated that he intends to make it. I don’t consider myself the least bit competitive, would really only battle over some chick if a six shooter were held to my head, but at the same time, it seems almost a foregone conclusion that if I skip out on that adventure, I’m throwing a great opportunity to the wind. One that he is sure to seize upon. And bully for him, but stupid of me.

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Today’s Recommended read: A Vampire’s Girl by Maggie Tideswell

When Sophia returns to Cape Town after she’d fled the city to escape both confusing men, she firmly puts her feelings for both Zane and Jared behind her. Zane had been institutionalized and would remain so for a long time, and Jared’s duties had taken him away indefinitely.

Yet, when Zane shows up on her doorstep out of the blue, he rekindles the flame that never quite died.

Against all odds, Sophia agrees to his marriage proposal — a decision that could cost her life.

Several people, including a vampire hunter, work together to prevent the wedding from happening. Jared’s return from duty creates an impossible situation for Sophia, who is yet again torn between the two men. Jared finds her choice untenable, yet for the vampire, the wedding night is the perfect time for the completion of his cure.

Can Jared save Sophia from Zane’s sinister plans for her blood before the wedding?

Find out in the final installment of Magick & Fangs Series.