I knocked on the door, twice, no more as not to appear too eager to take Alice out to dinner. She answered the door with a towel around her head suggesting drenched hair. She apologized for not being ready and of course I told her not to worry about it. She invited me in – her roommate, Amy, was on the couch and reluctantly kept me company as Alice went through her metamorphosis from a solid 6 to an almost 9.
First off, why the hell was I knocking? I really just wanted to honk, or text her that I had arrived, or Tweet her, Facebook her, Yelp, Digg, Google Voice her ass, Google Plus her face off, send a picture message of me sitting in her driveway, yell out of my car window, even Whupf her, but society and CosmoGirl tells me that knocking is polite, so knock-knock it is. Secondly, I did not want to meet her roomie; I do not need to increase my visibility in case I get her preggo and am forced to leave the city. Thirdly, why was she not ready? She had two weeks to make our 7pm date, two weeks; instead she was running around like a Taliban pinup with a towel around her head. I bought a bootlegged Cialis to see Alice and from the looks of the date so far I wasn’t going to make the dinner reservation let alone make love. I was already on edge because I didn’t really like her; well, I didn’t think she really liked me, so I quid pro quo’d that ho and didn’t like her back.
Amy politely apologized for her roommate’s tardiness and offered me a tour of their condo while I waited. I obliged, she showed me her quant little library full of books, books that I approved of, she showed me Alice’s Marilyn Monroe poster, she showed me other stuff while I made dumb comments that she found humorous.
Amy had an adorable laugh, a confident laugh, as if her laugh was a humor barometer. Alice on the other hand didn’t laugh, she would say “oh that’s funny,” and then NOT laugh – dammit. Not only did I hate her for not being ready but I hated her for not being Amy. My mind raced with thoughts of switching roomies – but I was not Clooney enough to pull of the trade, was I an asshole for considering it, what if Amy was my soul mate though, shit, she had a copy of Dubliners on her bookshelf, Dubliners; while Alice looked up to Marilyn Monroe – Marilyn, the chubby druggy immoral tramp who fucked JFK, RFK, Y2K, and then took a fistful of sleeping pills to the head; nice role model ladies, and you wonder why Saudi Arabia doesn’t let you drive.
We said goodbye to Amy as Alice grabbed my hand and led me outside. I found it sweet that she was awestruck by my opening the car door for her. I, on the other hand, was awestruck by how sexy she looked in black leggings and a vertical long-neck gray shirt. Jay-Z and Kanye’s Watch the Throne began playing when I turned the ignition but it must not have been her flavor because just as Otis’ initial bars screamed through my speakers she was flipping to an album of her choice. She landed on NSync’s Dirty Pop and then flipped the passenger’s mirror down to apply eye-liner. Once she was finally ready to keep me company she flipped the visor back up and leaned into me as I drove; she was so close that each of my inhalations had a healthy dose of White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor.
The opposable thumb is not a male-specific accessory, meaning she could have opened her own damn door; and yeah only gentlemen open doors, right Ted Bundy. I could barely drive with the whole of her body weight on my right side. I could barely drive with eyes watered down with perfume-burned retinas. She looked great, but she was late getting ready so she could throw on leggings and a shirt; leggings and a shirt, fuck, I waited 40 extra minutes so she could throw on an outfit that Kate Moss sleeps in. I didn’t want her to know that I had the NSync anthology so soon into the date but she had to finger-fuck my iPod revealing my vintage boy-band reverence. But what I really wanted to do was to stop the car and explain to her how to properly fasten the fucking passenger-side visor back into its clip. I couldn’t stop thinking about the visor-click that never was. I was worried that we were going to end up in a ditch because my focus was on my visor and not on the road. I couldn’t reach over and click it for her because then she would be uncomfortable on account of my OCD leaving both of us on edge for the night’s remainder; but fuck, the visor was just hanging there, on one hinge, diminished structural integrity. Damn it lady, just sit in the car and don’t touch anything.
We missed our reservation and sat at the bar as the wait staff tried to accommodate our delayed appearance. I ordered a Red Bull & Goose while Alice checked me into the restaurant on Facebook. I didn’t know whether or not she liked me, but at least she was comfy enough with me to inform Facebook of our date. She chided me about my Red Bull addiction, politely informing me that it was as bad as cigarettes, another one of my vices that she disapproved of. She told me that she loved people watching and we proceeded to make up stories for the other bar patrons.
How about you people watch me – it took me 45 minutes to tie this fucking double-Windsor for this non-date date. I was stressed; because by way of her “checking me in,” the whole world knew that I was on a date, she was cock-blocking me with the other girlies I was sorta Facebook-wooing plus my buddy now knew I wasn’t “too sick” to have helped him move his dresser. I hate checking in, I made fun of those people, and now I was those people; all that stress left me with an itch only Marlboro could scratch; but I couldn’t smoke or drink Red Bull because Alice the Doctor showed up to shit on my life style. Unless your name is Dr. Oz and you were on Oprah and now have an informative and eponymous television show entitled Dr. Oz, don’t give me medical advice. I want Red Bull wings even if it kills me and gives me angel wings; I wanted to bludgeon myself with a can of Red Bull so death could intervene and save me from her “sage” medical advice. And damn it lady, I was wearing suspenders when I asked you out, no one buys suspenders without a healthy nicotine addiction, suspenders are like the opposite of the LiveStrong bracelet.
We had to eat at the bar as there were no tables available for the night’s balance; so we ordered dinner and talked about books. In between her phone ringing over and over I found out that The Notebook was her favorite “novel” because it reminded her of Ryan Gosling. I also found out that she was almost done with The Twilight series. We talked about The Notebook movie and how it validated her belief in love at first sight while we waited for our food to arrive. I didn’t mind that her literary dalliances positioned her in two circles usually reserved for 15-year-old girls; I found it endearing, it implied innocence.
I didn’t want innocence – I wanted regret, an AIDS scare, a girl I couldn’t trust, I wanted to have the kind of carnal relations that Edward had with Bella. All her innocence notwithstanding, her love of love at first sight meant that she’d had quite a few one-night stands; lots of guys also believe in love at first sight because it usually leads to sex the first night. I was afraid that I had missed her whoring period and jumped on board during her vaginal-gentrification era. And thank you for not only keeping your cell phone on the bar but for also not putting it on vibrate; I really wanted everyone in the restaurant to know you have Bon Iver’s Skinny Love set as your ringtone. And my insecurity grew to epic proportions as her loins moistened with Gosling conversation; I was so happy she was attracted to men I have zero in common with; she couldn’t have mentioned Javier Bardem so my insides didn’t continue enveloping themselves like a self-loathing-insecurity-black-hole.
Eating at the bar was not as uncomfortable as I had anticipated – having Alice on my right instead of on my front forced me to choreograph a rhythmic dance of take-a-bite-and-turn-right-to-chat. I playfully fought off her fork off as she stole French fries from my plate and called her “boo” often enough for her to blush at the sweetness of the word.
I called her “boo” because I disapproved of her, boo bitch, you’re not good at dates, BOO! And honestly, if she wanted French fries why did she order a vegetable medley, why. I didn’t want to playfully bat her fork away; I wanted to stab her in the neck – my plate, my fries. And she kept taking the really good fries, the ones with all the seasoning and visible oil droplets, leaving me the midget fries with barely enough surface area for the ketchup that she also helped herself to – damn it, order fries if you want fries, not too tough a concept to fathom. And had I known she was a vegetarian I would never have taken her out, let alone to an Italian steakhouse. I hate vegetarians and their chronic anemia – “I’m cold… I have bad circulation… I need protein pill replacements… I read The Jungle in high school and it changed my life… do you know what’s actually in a McNugget… Cows and Chickens are treated so inhumanely.” Cows and chickens aren’t treated like humans because they are not humans, let’s save the dying babies in Detroit before we erect poultry safe-houses bitch, McNuggets are so good that the smell makes my dick twitch a little bit, I actually liked The Jungle, but shut up about it already, stop taking protein pills and eat a burger, stop buying sweaters and “suffering” through anemic afternoons, stop shivering on a ninety-degree day, instead go to Denny’s and ask for the Ron Swanson… bacon bitch, bacon.
NSync’s “Bye Bye Bye” serenaded us during the ride home; serendipity, since I did not foresee Date 2: The Sequel: Bigger and Blacker: The Empire Strikes Back. We had too much uncommon to forge anything more than a carnal connection and the “love” tattoo she had on her wrist implied that she was looking for real love not 3 minutes of heaven with yours truly followed by 4 minutes of apologies and 5 minutes of Q & A. I pulled into her driveway and walked her to her door, I hugged her, I wanted to kiss her on the cheek, but I wasn’t stealth enough or French enough to pull it off. I was a half-step off her stoop, with a hand on my Blackberry, when she asked if I wanted to come inside and watch a movie. Her roommate Amy was gone for the night and she didn’t want our date to end.
What the hell was going on! I was a fucking moron for eating that heavy ass meal – I should have ordered a veggie plate to maintain dexterity and cardiovascular stamina for potential sex. I was shocked that she liked me enough to invite me inside, I was glad that bitch Amy was gone for the night, I never really liked her, I shouldn’t have worn my tattered Playboy boxers, thank God I uploaded the NSync anthology, I told my brothers NSync would come in handy and that I wasn’t gay for liking them, I was hoping we would watch The Notebook, I was never going to eat beef again, I wanted to download FourSquare and check in to Alice’s vagina, I knew her “love” tattoo was a good omen, oh fuck I think I loved her, she invited me inside, this was the greatest date of all time!
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