Gordon loses

So, I'm a bit of a loser. But even losers have standards.
I was talking to my friend Jacques about it. He said, "Gordon, you're going to have to set your sights with more accuracy."
What the hell does that mean, really? I asked him. He just pointed, at this mark on the wall of his bedroom where feet had scuffed it.
Nice. He's a nice man.
The reason for this attack on my high standards was triggered two days earlier when I came into contact with a girl named Emma. A beautiful brunette with honey eyes and olive skin. I bruised her.
I bruised her quite badly when I knocked into her. It was unfortunate, and I dropped a lot of my shopping on the floor of the supermarket. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. That's what I say to myself when bad things happen.
I scrabbled around for my tins and cheese. She handed me back a loaf of bread. I handed her back a pack of steaks. "You might need them for your eye!" I managed this joke and attempted to laugh, but I hadn't bruised her eye, just her leg as I was swinging my basket, like normal.
"Oh yeah, thanks." She was quite friendly for a girl I'd just attacked with tinned food.
"So, er, well this is awkward." I was about to ask her who should sort out paying for the broken jar of pickled onions that had fallen from my basket. Instead, I seized on an opportunity that is scarcely afforded me, the opportunity to speak to a beautiful woman.
"So, would you like to come and get a drink with me?" I asked her, pretty well, I thought. "Or maybe grab a bite?" I tagged that quickly on the end.
She was umming and erming, shifting awkwardly, trying to find the words to get away. I didn't notice this at the time. "Yeah, let's go crazy. Let's just throw our baskets down on the floor, right here, and just go and blow the money on Italian food and red wine. Hey? What do you say to that, missy?"
She bit her lip and then prepared to speak. I smiled into her golden eyes. She said, calmly: "Look, we've both just thrown our baskets down once, and it's got us nowhere. All I plan to do now is to get out of this shop, go home, eat a meal I can throw in the microwave, put some ice on my leg and then go to bed."
She didn't say it implicitly, but I understood she didn't want to involve me in any of these plans. She excused herself and walked down an aisle to the check-out. I stood in silence for a few seconds and then my eyes focused on the broken jar of pickled onions. The vinegar had pooled around my feet and the silverskin onions sat plumply on the tiled floor. I realised this was a health-hazard and looked around the store for the next ten minutes to find a member of staff to clean it up.
I explained how it had happened and they didn't make me pay for it, for which I was quite glad.
Jacques later told me this all happened because I was a loser, and losers can't make anything good happen for themselves. A handsome, suave individual could have turned that situation into something more; even wound up getting a month's worth of sex out of it. But all a loser is going to get out of it is a bruised ego and the clinging reek of vinegar about his person.
Jacques then said that Lilly quite likes me, though. Why don't I try my luck with Lilly?
I had previously thought Lilly beneath me. Small, spotty, perhaps hairy - I'm not sure, but she looks the type. I could always think of a reason why Lilly was not worth bothering with. But, lately, I've been thinking maybe even Lilly wouldn't bother with me. I mean, what have I got to offer her except vinegar shoes? So, I passed on Lilly.
I couldn't be bothered with cooking last night so I went to the take-away. It was run by a Chinese gentleman and he offered a good range of cuisine. Tempted by egg fried rice, I instead opted for good old, traditional, fish and chips.
"Salt 'n' vinegar?"
"Yes, please!"
While I was walking home I crossed to the side of the street that was not lit by street lamps. There, in the dark I spotted the tell-tale glint of smokers; the new lepers of the pubs and bars, gathering like refugees in doorways.
Coming towards me was the shadowy shape of a full-figured woman. A huge creature, from a few feet away I knew I had to change direction slightly in order to avoid brushing her as we passed.
As she came near enough for the available light to show her face, I realised that she was looking right at me, and that she was smiling. I smiled back, though more as a reflex, unaccustomed as I am to having to return the smile of a woman.
Well, this was quite a turn up for the books. Granted, she was grossly overweight, but all I needed to establish was whether she might have found me, in some small way, attractive.
I decided to call Jacques for his opinion on the fat woman. Down the phone he enquired: "You had on your vinegar shoes, you say? And you were carrying a take-away? Could that have been why she was smiling at you?"
I bid Jacques a good evening, put down the phone and tucked into my fish supper.