Emma sat at the edge of the bath cursing and swearing her rotten luck. She gripped the towel again and continued to vigorously scrub her face and hair. Once she had finally regained her sight, she looked at her clothes on the floor covered in paint and winced at the thought of having to likely throw her burgundy blouse out. Through the door she heard a boy say, “I have more towels, if you need them and some girls shampoo, it’s my mother’s”. This last sentence made Emma chuckle in the back of her mind. After a brief period of silence, she responded “what do mean girls shampoo?”. “Shampoo for girls. Its girly shampoo”, she heard. Emma smirked at the innocence of the comment. “What’s the difference between girls’ shampoo and boys’ shampoo” she asked. “Girls shampoo smells like flowers and fruit, boy shampoo smells like timber and spices” she heard through the door. Emma sat up, intrigued by the stranger’s unique philosophy, “So you don’t like the smell of flowers and fruit”. “No, I don’t” he responded. Emma smirked as she asked sarcastically, “so you don’t like girls”. There was a brief pause as the boy assumingly confronted the holes in his logic before he desperately stuttered “No I do, I absolutely do like girls. I love girls,”. Emma laughed livelily, “so you prefer girls over boys”? “Yes” the boy agreed. Emma responded in a puzzling tone “so to what ratio do you prefer women over men sir”? Although the boy seemed to be enjoying the banter, he was getting increasingly desperate to stop tying himself up in his words. He responded very clearly with the sound of a smile on his face, “No I do not prefer girls, I...” Emma interrupted “You prefer men”? The boy burst out laughing. They were both laughing. The boy responded in a cheeky tone “Alright well let me just drop these into you and I’ll be off”, as he said so, he fiddled with the door handle implying he was coming in. Emma screeched “Don’t you dare bold boy”. The boy laughed “If you can give it, you can take it". Emma scoffed, “Excuse you but as far as I can see, I’m getting you back for dumping a pale of paint on my head”. She smiled as she heard through the door, “Don’t be sad...Yellow looks good you”. Just then their conversation was interrupted when a man began shouting angrily from the street. “What’s he saying”, asked Emma”. The boy explained, “He’s demanding I come down and clean up the mess on the street, he says he’s driven straight through, and it’s stained it”. Emma laughed. “I’d best get down to the shops and buy some buckets and brushes, it’s a mess, you feel free to stay in there as long as you like, and I’m still very sorry for the hassle...but yellow still looks good on you”. With this she heard the boy walk away, but before he did, she yelled for him to wait. “Who is this man on the back of your door”? Emma was referring to a massive movie poster from the film ‘The Big Lebowski’, which depicted Jeff Bridges sitting on the toilet, sipping a white Russian, uttering the words “Well clearly you’re not a golfer”. Through the door, she heard the boy chuckle, “That’s the dude, he’s my favorite movie character ever, from my favorite movie ever”. Emma smiled and said, “Wow, well I’ve never seen it”? This was followed by a long beat. For a moment Emma wondered if the boy had left and gone to clean up the street, until she heard a dull thud against the door as if someone had pressed up against it, then she heard,” Hey, well...It’s actually playing tonight, in this kind of vintage cinema I know of, it’s kind of hidden...I was going to watch it...your welcome to maybe come?”. Emma thought for a second, she looked at the poster on the door and chuckled at the thought that it almost felt like she had been talking to this hairy man or ‘the dude’ the whole time opposed to a real person behind it. She was intrigued. “Yes, I’d love to” she responded. The boy laughed, “Hey that’s fantastic, that’s really great, well the cinema is called Clooney’s, but since it’s kind of hard to get to you want to meet at Eddie rockets on Harriot Street beforehand, around like 9?” It crossed her mind that she was aware of this particular cinema, but she quickly agreed to the proposition of dinner, “Yeah, let’s do that” Emma gleamed. Through the door she hears the man on the street shouting up again, this time louder and angrier. The boy interrupted, “Alright well, I better get to the shops, but I’ll see you tonight umm, what was your name? Emma thought for a beat, “Kim. Kim Monroe. What’s yours?”. The boy laughed and cleared his throat before responding “I’m the dude”. With that he knocked twice on the door as if to say until next time and then she heard him sprint down the stairs and out on the street. Emma eager to get back home and prepare for her date, pulled back on her trousers, and found an old T-shirt hanging by the bathroom window that she climbed into throwing her ruined blouse in her bag. When she made sure she looked as presentable as possible not to draw too many funny looks on the way home, she quickly tidied the bathroom as not to give the impression she was a messy girl. Then she unlocked the door, climbed down the stairs, and exited onto the street, where she encountered the mess, and it really was bad. To her left was what she assumed to be the angry driver standing next to his car, bickering over the phone with someone. Emma continued past him by and on down the street, smiling to herself all the way, briefly content with her boring life.