i'm taking a break from the alphabet for a minute, in order to introduce a new feature. everyone's been on a date that was less that we'd hoped it would be for one reason or another. most of the time, there's a noteworthy anecdote which illustrates some crucial turning point in the date. these oftentimes make for great reading. so, now and then here on 'planetcool' i'm going to feature curious little stories like this next one!
and it comes from a young lady we'll call gwen. GWEN: "...so, i'm in his apartment, right? and it seemed like a decent place, i mean it was clean and all and he had even gone through the trouble of burning some vanilla incense...cool, right? so um...the guy was cute, too. he sort of had a matt damon thing going on. so um, we're eating some vegetable sticks and dip and drinking some pink wine he wouldn't let me see what kind of container he'd taken it out of... i'm thinking it was most likely one of those cheesy boxes, since he had to take the glasses into the kitchen to fill them back up. so, things were going pretty smoothly, and he's on his way back from his way-too-brightly-lit kitchen with the two full glasses, when he does the fakest-looking 'trip' near the edge of the carpet and spills the pink crap all over my shirt. i wasn't too pissed, i mean, it was an old shirt. so he starts apologizing like crazy, like a conspicuous amount of apologizing. i lost count of how many times he said 'ahh, jeez..!' like he was being super-careful not to say 'jesus' around me on account of he didn't know how religious i was-or-not yet. he wastes no time in digging up a dry t-shirt for me to put on, and even leads me to the bedroom, and makes a point out of saying he'd 'even close the door' while i changed. and i was like, 'no shit, you're gonna close the door.' so he closes the door, and i start to get a little scheeved that maybe he's got a hidden camera set up, like he'd planned the whole thing, so i take the shirt and go into his walk-in closet. i turn on the light, and that's when i saw it. on the back of the door is a massive, door-sized poster of damn Legolas in the woods, drawing his bow. at first, i thought nothing of it, i mean, Lord of the Rings was a real popular movie, until i see there's this little piece of paper posted on it, like near Legolas's mouth. and it said, like, as if Legolas was saying it,
"...i have searched the world entire
over stone and through the mire
but 'tis you, who art the Sire
who doth most light my 'shire' fire..."
it was in my date's handwriting. i'm not sure how long i stood there looking at it... like, i wanted to convince myself it was like, some kind of roommate joke... only he didn't have a roommate. two things were obvious: it was put there by him, my date, and it was 'for his eyes only.' so, i didn't want him to think i was taking too long, so i real-fast shimmied into his damn Styx t-shirt and went back to the living room. and i am NOT lying, he was standing next to the entertainment center with the little dvd door open, loading up a copy of ' The Two Towers.' how did the rest of the date go? well, we'd actually gotten half-way through the movie, and like, Legolas was on the screen. he turned to me and asked me if i ever thought about bleaching my hair, and even made a point of specifying, '...you know, real bleached? like, almost white-bleached?' that's when i blurted out something about having to serve pancakes to seniors the next morning as some kind of charity thing, picked up my purse, and booked out the door. i was wearing the Styx shirt when i booked. i still have it. its lining my cat's bed."
2 comments:
Hahahaha! Poor "Gwen."
Have to call my friend, we'll call her "Toni". She's got a doosie of a bad date story...more to come...
So, I called my friend Toni who lives in Playa Del Rey, CA (the dating pool in the LA area is pathetic to say the least, so she has a lot of good stories) and she sent me the following email. It's really something. Enjoy.
"So this was a guy I met at the Jamba Juice near my house. I'd see him everyday or most days in there when I was on my way to work. He was always in cycling clothes but he was cute and seemed normal, relatively speaking, so when he asked me to dinner, I was like, why not? I ain't getting any younger. Way to go into a date right?
Anyway, Friday eve comes and he arrives to pick me up and he is SUPER SUNBURNED with Raccoon eyes in the shape of wrap-around sunglasses. He was also wearing black UGG BOOTS. Yeah. He escorted me to his car which was a Chevy Malibu. Which is TOTALLY FINE, I am not a car snob, except that he referred to his car as "My 'Bu". When I was getting into the car, he said, "yeah, all day long, it's just me and My 'Bu." I was thinking, "uh oh." But I just let it ride. Ride like he was enjoying the ride in his "'Bu."
He took me to this restaurant in the Marina called Shanghai Red's, which had burned and recently just re-opened. This restaurant has a crazy Japanese water garden surrounding it and man made streams filled with Koi fish. Some of the Koi didn't look so good and some were swimming in crazy circles. When I pointed this out, Gentleman X goes, "Oh yeah, those fish are sick. That's called
"Twirling Disease". Those Koi are close to death. They should take better care of those fuckers. When we sat down he went on to explain to me in great detail, other fish diseases, "Hold In the Head" was one and the other was "Ick." Which I tried to tell him I'd heard of, but he still went on to explain it some detail.
He ordered me a margarita with "whatever shelf tequila", then said "Uh oh" and disappeared to the bathroom. He was gone, I swear to God, like over 20 minutes.
when he came back all he said was, "well, that was unpleasant."
He wanted me to see his place and I think the low-budget tequila had blurred my judgement, so I went with him. I gotta be honest, I was super curious. And I knew he didn't live far from me. He bragged that he lived in a condo complex that Diff'rent Strokes (dead) star Dana Plato used to live in. I didn't know what was more pathetic, the fact that he would drop that flaccid nugget or the fact that I kinda thought he was lying.
When we got into his apartment, which looked like the set of the Golden Girls, he popped open a Coors Light and handed it to me. He opened one for himself and plunked down on the couch and continued to talk about himself, telling me that he'd just recently quit his job as an I.T. guy to "throw his hat into the music ring." Then I mentioned the Beatles and he said, swear to God, "I never really got the Beatles. I'm more of a soul/jazz kinda guy." That's when I shoulda run out of there. But I hung in. This is when it got worse. He whipped out a BONGO drum, turned on Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and proceeded to play the bongos to it loudly and arhythmically while making A LOT of direct eye-contact with me.
After the song was finished, he smiled and said, "well, that was just a taste." Mmmm. Then he went back into the bathroom and was gone AGAIN for like ANOTHER 20 MINUTES. While he was gone I picked up a photo album and opened it right away. It was clearly a wedding album.
But get this, it was him, getting married to this woman who looked like Bonnie Raitt and was clearly way older than him and it was a Renaissance Fair wedding. He was dressed like Robin Hood and had a sword and a cape. She was dressed like Guineveire and had a leather glove with a Falcon perched on her arm. Then I heard him flush the toilet for a SECOND time.
He re-entered, looked at the album and said, "oh yeah. That's my bitch ex-wife." He went on to tell me that he divorced her because she was "bipolar" and had "mad eczema." but then added she was a huge animal person and that's how he knew all that cool shit about the fish diseases. Great.
Then he was like, "is it bed time?" Uh no. I told him, no offense to the "Bu" but I was gonna walk home on the bike path. As he closed the door behind me, I heard him mumble, "damn..."
The last time he saw me in Jamba Juice, he glanced over and tipped an imaginary hat. Um...nope.
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