What? Casanova didn't try "Your melons look ripe to me!"

What's the world coming to when there's no one left who will try the world's worst pickup lines?

Milk comes from wet cars driven by pirates who park next to dry telephone poles!

Ooh, ooh! Try Otter's line from Animal House. "Mine's bigger than that." Of course, you need to be sure the set-up is right, so watch the movie first.

Boy, I can think of a lot of conversational starters for the grocery store. Ask for help. "Do you know how to tell if an avocado is ripe? I never seem to get it right." "Huh, flank steak, sirloin -- I was hoping for rib eye; did you see any?" "What the heck is the difference between just plain yogurt and Greek yogurt, anyway? Does it shout "Opa!" when you open the container or something?"

Tell you what, dude, next time you go to the grocery store, play a little mental game, thinking up innocuous questions you could ask a pretty girl in any given aisle.

Kernel panics... if only I had known...

Ha! If it makes this guy feel any better, I just experienced a grocery store pick-up attempt even lamer than his.

A couple of weeks ago, a guy was checking me out pretty obviously while we were in the store. For a good half-hour, I kept catching him looking at me, but he didn't talk to me. That is -- until we got out of the store. (He waited for me outside for a good five minutes, by the way, since he only had a couple of items and his checkout line moved more quickly than mine.)

When I came out of the store, he stopped me and said "Excuse me, I saw you in the store and noticed you're chewing gum. Could I have a piece?"

I restrained the impulse to point out that he could have bought gum in the checkout line, and said "um, I guess." I was holding two huge, heavy bags of groceries, which I had to put down to fish the gum out of my purse. He said thank you, but then clearly was at a loss for how to follow up. I picked up my groceries and moved on. He walked with me for a block or two, without saying another word. Then we went our separate ways, and I had a weird story to tell my friends.

(Maybe it wasn't a lame pickup attempt at all? Maybe the dude just really wanted gum and was too cheap to buy it?)

Anyway, guys, word to the wise -- if you want to meet a woman in a grocery store, much better to ask her advice on how to choose an avocado than to make her put everything down on a busy city sidewalk to give you a free piece of gum.

And if by chance you do find yourself blurting out a request for Trident instead of asking for her number, you'd be better off following it with a "ok, I didn't really want gum. I wanted to meet you and somehow it came out as a request for gum. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" instead of tagging along dumbly while she lugs her groceries down the street.

Were you interested in him Gail? I mean, if he hadn't been weird to the point of creepy, would you have gone for his bait? Because I think if the same had happened to me, I would have been like, nah, sorry, I have my hands full. I think women are raised to be just a bit too nice. But that's another letter, isn't it.

Laurie, yes - and a very important letter, too.

"Could I have a piece?"

And you didn't get the entendre?

Go watch the old movie Starman, the scene where the deer hunter is supposedly offering venison to Karen Allen.

"Excuse me, Miss. You strike me as a meat eater. I could fix you up with a haunch of venison. Maybe even a shot of pork."

@Laurie -- he actually wasn't bad looking. But I didn't give him the gum for that reason. I was just so caught off guard by the request -- I mean, wtf, GUM? -- I set down the groceries and reached for it before it occurred to me to refuse. Damn, maybe I AM too nice after all. I'll have to work on that.

@Gog -- if the gum dude was making a double entendre, he's going to have to work on his delivery if he ever hopes to get a piece of anything besides wrigley's.

I stopped by a grocery store after a co-worker's birthday party to get a particular juice I like (OJ with Pineapple) since the one near me stopped carrying it. I couldn't find it so I asked the girl who was stocking the section. I said "Excuse me" and she had this horrified look on her face...I continue "do you still carry the Orange juice and pineapple blend?" She seemed to relax..."I think so." And started looking. Apparently they didn't...but the initial look told me she got hit on a lot there and didn't like it one bit.

Unfortunately I cannot get my OJ from the telephone pole.

Conversation's a two-way street.

Meaning what, Lobster? If YOU are the one attracted to a total stranger, and YOU are the one approaching him/her, the ball is in YOUR court to make that total stranger interested in talking to you.

Most attractive women have a fair number of men approaching them, and they aren't going to go out with all of them. Looks will only take you so far (at least if you're a man). I'd be more likely to grab a coffee with an average-looking guy who amused me than a handsome guy with a weird approach. Before I'm going to agree to grab a coffee or hand out my digits to some guy I never met, he's going to have to be a wee bit charming -- or at least give me some reasonable confidence that he's not a creep.