Hey! It looks like you're new here. You might want to check out the introduction.
Organised by
RogerDodger
Word limit
400–750
Uncertainty Principles.
There are fourteen people in line in front of me. Each takes an average of forty two seconds to place their order, collect, move on. That's a total of five hundred and eighty eight seconds, nearly exactly twelve minutes, for me to work out how not to fuck this up.
Oh god I'm going to fuck this up.
Fuck.
Oh shit, that dude totally forgot his wallet that's only thirteen people fu-u-u-u-uck!
And I haven't factored in that six of the thirteen ahead of me are couples. How does that work into my maths?
You know what? Screw it. If I spend all this time thinking about my maths, I won't be thinking about what to say to Kiara when she finally takes my order. If I work on the -- five hundred and twelve I guess? -- seconds I have left doing maths instead of thinking of what to say to her, I won't be thinking about fucking this all up and oh god please no.
Arrgh.
Okay. So there are now twelve people in this line, thirteen including myself. Two have red hair, like Kiara. Well, not like Kiara, hers falls like an auburn waterfall off mountain rocks catching the sunset at just the right angle to lens the gorgeous red hues, while they're just gingers. Right? About 2% of the population of this country naturally has red hair. The odds of three people in fourteen having red hair naturally is... shit... four hundred seventy two seconds... fourteen over one hundred fifty is almost exactly 0.01, or ten percent.
I guess it's more likely than I thought.
You know what's still incredibly unlikely?
Me working out what to say in the next four hundred thirty six seconds.
I need to be focused.
Wait, one of the couples is fraternal twins. The odds of dizygotic twins are, let's say, one per hundred. Meanwhile the odds of identical twins are... about three in a thousand are monozygotic. So the odds of twins being in this line at all against them being identical vs fraternal twins would be--
Three hundred twenty eight seconds.
They bought their coffee and Kiara's frameless glasses fell down her nose a little as she did with an angle of incidence suggesting an acceleration as a ratio of ten meters per second per second of gravity resulting in--
Two hundred eight four seconds
-- should I mention it? She looks really cute in glasses. Someone else might have told her to wear contacts, but the way her bangs frame her face make those glasses like telescopes out, an observatory to the world focusing back down on the brilliant occupant inside, and you could see just how bright that intelligence was when it looked out right at you, looked right through you, until your own eyes started darting away across her freckles --
Of which are far more numerous than the six people ahead of me in line.
Couples order drinks together faster, down to each individual as thirty two seconds total. This is probably due to a cut in pleasantries.
Should I skip right to asking-
Four people to decide, because I might have blanked out from panic for a few seconds there.
I'm going to fuck this up, aren't I?
Yes.
Yes, I absolutely am.
Screaming silently.
Can I force myself into having a stroke? Then I won't have to deal with this. Possibly ever. Probably never.
Oh god I don't know what to do there aren't classes on talking to girls well okay there are but they're all terrible, terrible people I just want to know how to make the words come out good.
She always knows exactly what to say. When to laugh. I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to just... breathe. If I could do that, I wouldn't have waited. I would have just gone to the front of the line, asked politely for a moment of her time, and said-
"Oh, hey!" Zero seconds, Kiara informs me by omission -- namely the omission of people in front of me, "If it isn't my favourite customer. I got a special cup here, just for you. Double strength, two sugars, right?"
Drawing upon my vast knowledge of English, I say nothing.
Thirty two seconds later I have a styrofoam cup with a phone number and little love hearts drawn around them. She waves me off.
I'm left wondering what, exactly, the odds of that outcome were.
Oh god I'm going to fuck this up.
Fuck.
Oh shit, that dude totally forgot his wallet that's only thirteen people fu-u-u-u-uck!
And I haven't factored in that six of the thirteen ahead of me are couples. How does that work into my maths?
You know what? Screw it. If I spend all this time thinking about my maths, I won't be thinking about what to say to Kiara when she finally takes my order. If I work on the -- five hundred and twelve I guess? -- seconds I have left doing maths instead of thinking of what to say to her, I won't be thinking about fucking this all up and oh god please no.
Arrgh.
Okay. So there are now twelve people in this line, thirteen including myself. Two have red hair, like Kiara. Well, not like Kiara, hers falls like an auburn waterfall off mountain rocks catching the sunset at just the right angle to lens the gorgeous red hues, while they're just gingers. Right? About 2% of the population of this country naturally has red hair. The odds of three people in fourteen having red hair naturally is... shit... four hundred seventy two seconds... fourteen over one hundred fifty is almost exactly 0.01, or ten percent.
I guess it's more likely than I thought.
You know what's still incredibly unlikely?
Me working out what to say in the next four hundred thirty six seconds.
I need to be focused.
Wait, one of the couples is fraternal twins. The odds of dizygotic twins are, let's say, one per hundred. Meanwhile the odds of identical twins are... about three in a thousand are monozygotic. So the odds of twins being in this line at all against them being identical vs fraternal twins would be--
Three hundred twenty eight seconds.
They bought their coffee and Kiara's frameless glasses fell down her nose a little as she did with an angle of incidence suggesting an acceleration as a ratio of ten meters per second per second of gravity resulting in--
Two hundred eight four seconds
-- should I mention it? She looks really cute in glasses. Someone else might have told her to wear contacts, but the way her bangs frame her face make those glasses like telescopes out, an observatory to the world focusing back down on the brilliant occupant inside, and you could see just how bright that intelligence was when it looked out right at you, looked right through you, until your own eyes started darting away across her freckles --
Of which are far more numerous than the six people ahead of me in line.
Couples order drinks together faster, down to each individual as thirty two seconds total. This is probably due to a cut in pleasantries.
Should I skip right to asking-
Four people to decide, because I might have blanked out from panic for a few seconds there.
I'm going to fuck this up, aren't I?
Yes.
Yes, I absolutely am.
Screaming silently.
Can I force myself into having a stroke? Then I won't have to deal with this. Possibly ever. Probably never.
Oh god I don't know what to do there aren't classes on talking to girls well okay there are but they're all terrible, terrible people I just want to know how to make the words come out good.
She always knows exactly what to say. When to laugh. I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to just... breathe. If I could do that, I wouldn't have waited. I would have just gone to the front of the line, asked politely for a moment of her time, and said-
"Oh, hey!" Zero seconds, Kiara informs me by omission -- namely the omission of people in front of me, "If it isn't my favourite customer. I got a special cup here, just for you. Double strength, two sugars, right?"
Drawing upon my vast knowledge of English, I say nothing.
Thirty two seconds later I have a styrofoam cup with a phone number and little love hearts drawn around them. She waves me off.
I'm left wondering what, exactly, the odds of that outcome were.