11/11/14
“Hey, dude. How was the date?” Tim asked as his college roommate entered the apartment.
“Great!” Jack answered. “She’s pretty nice, and you can just tell she’s, um, really fit. Physically, I mean. I can’t wait to get to know her better.”
“I hear you. So, where’d you take her?”
“It was really special. I started with window shopping at those boutiques along Park Avenue.”
“Ooh, girls love that kind of stuff.”
“Then afterwards I took her to dinner at my parents’ house. Some relatives were in town for my grandpa’s birthday party. And I thought she’d like some home cooking.”
“Who wouldn’t, after the food in this place’s cafeteria? So, did she like it?” Tim wiggled his hand as if to prompt more details, but Jack was eager to talk.
“My family loved her,” Jack said. “Everyone found something in common with her. It was like she was the life of the party instead of my grandpa.”
“Cool,” said Tim.
“Mom was surprised at how little she eats. Dad was impressed with her knowledge of meat. Uncle Henry joked with her about old movies. And Grandpa spoke with her of modern social mores. She also got along with my cousins, but I couldn’t hear what they talked about.”
“It sounds like a perfect date. You da man.” Tim struggled to keep his voice from betraying his own growing interest in this perfect girl. “You gonna see her again?”
“I’d like to. But she forgot to give me her phone number.”
“How’d you get together in the first place?”
“I take a class with her friend, and the friend fixed us up. Then to get together we just met in front of the bookstore. So I don’t know where she lives, and her friend wasn’t in class today. So unless I see her around campus, I’ll have to wait for next week’s class.”
= = = = =
Cathy answered the early-morning knock at her door and found Diane standing there visibly upset. Putting her arm around her friend’s shoulders, she led her into the apartment.
“Oh, Diane. What’s wrong?”
“That date!” Cathy sobbed. “Don’t ever fix me up again!”
“That bad? But Jack seemed like a nice guy in class.”
“I haven’t slept at all. I sat up all night waiting until I could come here. I have to talk to someone.”
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” said Cathy. “You can tell me all about it while I make us some coffee.”
“It was a disaster from the start,” Diane began. “He took us to Park Avenue, so I thought he was okay. But then all he wanted to do was walk down the street. No matter how many times I tried to look at something, he’d pull me away from the window. I kept thinking if I just hinted a little harder he’d catch on. But no. I mean, if he didn’t want to shop, why bother going there?”
“Yeah. A typical insensitive guy.”
“On top of that he didn’t even take me out to eat. We went to his mother’s house so she could feed us!”
“You’re joking.” Cathy was aghast, but Diane kept on.
“It wasn’t even a quiet diner with his parents. They were having some kind of family reunion and there were more than a dozen people, all staring at me wondering why I was there.”
“Nah. Now I know you’re kidding. What really happened?”
“There wasn’t anything I could eat,” Diane continued. “Every dish was meat. I’m sure I told him when we made the date that I’m vegetarian. But they had every meat you could think of — roast beef, ham, turkey, and something I couldn’t tell. What few vegetable dishes there were also had meat in them. Pork and beans, green beans with bacon, and even the potato salad had chunks of ham and chicken.”
“Eww!” sneered Cathy.
“When I explained to his mother what was wrong she went and found half a head of lettuce, cut off the brown spots, and made me a small salad. Well, that is if you can call lettuce and mayonnaise a salad. And that was the only thing I had while everyone else was stuffing their faces and laughing.”
“That’s terrible! Didn’t anyone notice or try to help?”
“His father kept offering me the different meats. I told him how cows were filled with chemicals and hormones, how chickens were kept in overcrowded cages, and how pigs were force fed. But he wasn’t bothered at all. He just kept smacking his lips as if mistreatment made them tastier. I didn’t know whether to cry or throw up.”
“The brute. What’d you do?”
“I gave up on his parents and went to the other side of the room. There I met his uncle and grandfather. And they were even worse!”
“Worse? How could this possibly get any worse?”
“His uncle said, um, wait let me get this right. ‘Your face looks familiar. Weren’t you a main character in Planet of the Apes?’ Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk.”
“No! He really said you look like an ape?”
“Yes. I was so stunned I couldn’t breathe. I think my mouth fell open, and that made him laugh even harder. Then the grandfather asked if it’s true girls these days will sleep with anyone. He then leered at me as if he wanted to do it right then and there.”
“Oh, gross! He thought you’d do it with him? Yuk!”
“I ran to hide in the bathroom. I just wanted to stay away from everyone until we could leave. But it was full of other girls. I think they were cousins.”
“Well, at least they weren’t so bad,” Cathy said with a hopeful tone. “Right?”
Diane shook her head. “They told me how much they hate skinny girls like me who always show off their hot bodies. You can guess what they looked like.”
Cathy snorted and nodded in understanding.
“All I could do was go outside and wait,” Diane said. “It was forever before Jack finally came out. I told him I wanted to go home, then had him drop me at the bookstore again so he wouldn’t know where I live.”
Cathy scowled. “I don’t blame you one bit. Instead of Jack, they should call him Jerk!”
= = = = =
The next day Jack and Tim were having lunch in the college cafeteria when Jack elbowed his friend and pointed across the dining room.
“Look,” he said. “There’s Diane. And that’s my classmate beside her. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”
Jack and Tim stood up, but before they could get far they saw Cathy stand up and make a motion. Her hand was held forward in a gesture of “stop”, and her head was shaking “no.”
“You’d better let me check this out,” Tim said.
Jack sat back down. Then as Tim crossed the room, Cathy walked toward him. They met and talked at the half-way point.
“Hi, I’m Tim,” he said, extending his hand.
“I’m Cathy,” she answered with a quick handshake.
“Um, is there a problem or something? Jack doesn’t know what’s wrong.”
“He doesn’t? How could he not know, after what he did?”
Seeing Tim’s puzzled expression Cathy gave him a summary of “the date from hell.” Tim’s face grew pale at first, but soon turned red as the story progressed. He shot frequent glances back toward his friend, but Jack’s clueless expression only increased Tim’s anger. At length Tim and Cathy returned to their respective tables.
“So what is it?” asked Jack eagerly.
“Dude. You’re a real jerk, aren’t you?”
Jack snapped backwards in his seat as if he’d just been slapped. “What?! What do you mean?”
“You don’t know anything about how to treat a lady,” Tim said. “And once word gets around, I’ll be surprised if anyone ever goes out with you.”
“What did I do? I don’t get it.”
“I’m too upset to explain it right now. Maybe later, ok? You can go back to the apartment, or do whatever you want. I’m going to spend the afternoon with Cathy and Diane, and see if I can make them feel better.”
Tim stood up and shook his head at Jack once more. He then joined the girls and the three of them left.
Jack remained in the cafeteria as the lunch crowd slowly thinned out. No matter how he tried, though, he couldn’t see what he’d done wrong. He’d just have to wait until his friend explained it.
“Oh, well,” he said to himself. “Such is love.”
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