NOT!Sam Malone: You've made my life a living hell.
Diane Chambers: I didn't want you to
think I was easy.
I'LL TELL YOU mine,
if YOU TELL ME YOURS:
WHAT WAS
YOUR WORST DATE?
Okay.
I'll go first.
MINE
SHORTLY AFTER THE WHEEL was invented, my sister was dating a dentist who had a younger brother who had just transferred to my city to finish getting his degree in architecture.
"He's perfect for you!" exclaimed my sister with Let's Plan a Double-Wedding in her voice.
"Have you even met this guy?" I asked.
"No. But he's perfect for you!"
SO, MY SISTER, her Dr. McDreamy, and I group efforted our way to pick up my blind date, Beau. (Hindsight tells me he probably dropped the "regard" last-half of his name early in life, because it's a word he'd never want to bother to know or show.) The four of us were about to share a meal together at what was comparable to today's Olive Garden. ("The sky's the limit, girls, have anything you want on the menu!")
WHEN WE ARRIVED at Doc Mc's brother's flat, we let ourselves in, assuming Beau was still primping. Idly, we chatted as we waited and waited and waited, then waited some more for Beau to present himself. While McDreamy started another chapter about a tooth he had bravely pulled that day (My sister was oohing and ahhing enough for the both of us.), I dubbed myself profiler, a term yet to exist back then, and began scanning the room for clues as to what my
MYSTERY DATEwas all about.
THE LIVINGROOM/DINETTE AREA was loaded with scented candles that you could tell were lit on a regular basis, and tons of incense wands and various too-cutesy "vases" (a ceramic frog with a porthole, a cat with a small well where a tail should have been, a giraffe body with a missing neck and head, etc. Did I mention the Humphrey Bogart nicknack with the hole in his mouth to hold an incense rod, and not a cigarette? Can't forget Bogie.) to display and burn them in. The coffee table and kitchen nook counter, visible from the couch where I was sitting and beginning to pull myself in tighter to me, held oodles of air fresheners and little ashtray filled with spent, wooden matches (I dunno, women's intuition? Something told me they'd all been lit at a moment's notice.) And there was no shortage of fire extinguishers in the place either.
YOU GUESSED it. By this time, I was more than AWK!-I'm-on-a-blind-date nervous. As I was about to tell my sister to cancel the joint wedding invitations and bolt for the door, we heard what turned out to be Beau's bathroom door opening, where he immediately positioned himself in the doorway, like Rocky Balboa, minus the wifebeater AND the Stallone.
"Ready to book?" he asked in "his-suavely," an I'm God's Gift to Women dialect. "Let's shall!" he answered himself and charged past us to leave the apartment."May I please use your bathroom first?" I politely interrupted as this marked the second time since arriving at Beau's that I had thrown up a little in my mouth.
THE BATHROOM AIR proved to be NOT fresh, if you know what I mean. Far from it. Far, FAR from it. And I had definitely entered the sacred domain of Tinker Toyboy, the prince --in my sister's estimation, that is-- I'd kissed a lot of frogs to get to.
IN FRONT OF the toilet bowl stood a TV tray topped with a drawing board frosted with "Voila, I think I'm an architectural genius!"-type scribbles on fancy, state of the art architectural paper, where several mechanical pencils were laying in wait. (I flowered that sentence up some to help the situation smell better. Didn't work for me, how 'bout you?) Next to the toothbrush stuff was a box of toothpicks, several washed-now-drying Popsicle sticks (From orange Popsicles, I'm pretty sure.), and a bottle of Elmer's Glue. Architectual Digests and related textbooks were literally wall-to-wall, and my eyebrows definitely arched when I realised the long, metal strips sharding out of the basket in the corner were girders from an elaborate Erector Set located next to a CARTON of Glade® on top of which an Air Wick® had just been activated!
THAT'S WHEN I saw the toilet seat, one of those ultra-puffy, cushioned kind that begs serious sitters to stay for an even longer visit. Yes. YES. Beau's nirvana was waaay to close for comfort and I just wanted to wash my hands of the whole room AND him, but guess what? NO SOAP!
"Are you coming?" called my sister
saccharine sweetly.
RATS!
No way out and
her world was perfect.
NATURALLY, BEAU was waiting for us in the car. As it turned out, I only had to suffer through the meal (that of which I encouraged everyone to wash their hands before, especially Beau-without-the-"regard") listening to my sister talk about her and The Doctor's and manifesting true love and the many times they'd "flesh tangled," all said while she and the boyfriend took turns feeding each other bites of food. (Eating can be such a hindrance to earlobe, neck, and face sucking, but of course, they made it work during swallows.) After me-firsting his order, Beau spent the meal wolfing it down with blinders on (His idea of a blind date?) The only time his mouth opened was to load it up again. He finished eating ahead of us, at which time he magically pulled out a "mechanical" (a household word for Beau) and tapped it on the table to pass the time and to let us know, incessantly, where he stood:
Beauregard needed to
get back to his "office."
DARE I ask it?
WHAT WAS
YOUR WORST DATE?
Cheers!
SparkleFarkle~~~~~ *
P.S. ONE MORE romantical vignette
for the road?
Lucy: (disguised as an Italian seductress) Haven't we met before?
Ricky: It's possible.
I've been someplace before.
RIP, my Mollo and Drea.
All right, Mr. DeMille,
Makeup!
