Dating is an exercise in idiocy. I can’t tell you how often I go awry in the dating world, nor how many foolish, stupid things I do the rest of the time. Talk about being a fool in love. And life. And art. And, and…
I could try to share with you any number of poignant analogies, but let me tell you instead of the slapstick time I was simply ELATED to have been suddenly, without explanation, cancelled on.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. This was a couple years ago, back when I had long hair. These days, as you might surmise by the short, chunky bangs in my eyes shot over there, my hair’s pretty short. Possibly with good reason! Again, I’m getting ahead of myself.
I was pretty excited about this date. He was one of those rugged Latin-looking guys that makes me get all twittery an’ all. I had this really great, hard bike ride, came home, stretched, had this wonderful hot, hot bath, and when I was walking around, feeling really sorta sexed up, wearing this little shimmery nighty number and all that.
Now, you should probably know that I’m only just getting back to dating here after a very long, self-imposed no-dating period thingie. My first official date had been mere days before. He had five beers in 85 minutes. He said he was nervous. I wanted to say “Being an alcoholic can do that to you” but managed to bite my tongue. Because, after all, he was nervous. And thirsty. With an admirably large bladder.
So, by the time the post-bath slinking-about-in-shimmery-bits thing transpired, I was feeling like there was no possible way this date could be that painful to endure. It had to be a bit better.
And being the poofy romantic I am about having tealights burning on date days and such, I had tealights burning.
For some incredibly lame reason, I dropped something I couldn’t be dropping, and did that moved-like-Superman-after-a-falling-woman super-duper fast shit, caught whatever the hell the apparently entirely forgettable object was, and tripped.
I stumbled forward. The coffee table stopped my fall but my arm got in the way, so my head didn’t crack open and kill me (whew! saved the blog again!). I was all bent over the table, about to breathe a sigh of relief, when, in the corner of my eye, suddenly I saw fire. Fire.
My hair was on fire. My hair!
“MOTHERFUCKER!” I grabbed a pillow from the sofa with one hand, batting my head as I fumbled for the tumbler of water on the table. I threw it at my head, heard a sizzle-poof, smothered my head with the pillow, and stagger-ran to the bathroom.
Gasping, I then began to whimper as I sniffed the air. I smelled, I imagined, like the rooftop at the end of Ghostbusters, where the giant doggy-demons get flamed and it’s all burnt doghair and Stay-Puft marshmallow everywhere.
I must find a way to get rid of that stench before my date! I swore. Fortunately it didn’t look as bad as it smelled. It was a 1/2″ diameter patch that burned all the way down to only 1″ from the scalp. All the long, thick, wavy hair around it didn’t do a whole lot for the nubbly little burnt patch. I had this cute “ohmigosh that’s so embarrassing” ha-ha moment-thought with my soon-to-be date play in my mind. We’d stumble on the new nickname for me, I thought. “Nubby.”
Ding-ding. I had an instant message. “I can’t do this now. I’ll explain some other time. Later.” That was all the dude said in cancelling the date. Boy, I was pissed!
I started to take a deep breath. “Why, that bast–” I stopped with a whiff. Dog. Burnt. With a side of aloe baby oil scent. But dog!
Sometimes, it ain’t a loss. Just a rainout. And sometimes it’s not such a bad thing. That whole “not meant to be” thing is a comfort crutch in moments like, ooh, those one has when they’ve turned themselves into a human fire trick in the middle of their living room. “Why, Dave, I’m thrilled you think it’s a Stupid Human Trick. No, it’s just something I stumbled on…”
The only thing I can say is, I’m sure as hell glad I didn’t grab the glass with pre-date rye & 7 when I was dousing myself out.
Now that I’ve made a mockery of myself, why don’t you share some tales of your own? My stage is yours. After all, with all this nauseating Valentine’s Day crap everywhere, humiliation and illusion-shattering bitsies might not hurt anyone.