A Love Story

Once upon a time there was a girl. We'll call her Chickie. And she was freshly divorced. And she hated dating and going through all that first date awkwardness so she was serial dating to try and meet her next husband as quickly as possible.

One cold January day Chickie's friend Nat said "Hey, my friend's brother is coming to visit in April. You need to go out with him." So, under pressure Chickie said yes. Because surely by April she could find some way to weasel out of a blind date. Surely this guy will have a girlfriend or will have forgotten that he was supposed to have a blind date by then too, right?

But he did not forget.

He (henceforth Sweety) had talked to her online once or twice but she kept blowing him off because she was busy with 2 jobs, power shopping, serial dating and she really thought it was a waste of time to even bother with some guy 1000 miles away.

So Sweety gets to Texas and sends Chickie an e-mail letting her know that he's there and ready for their date. And she sends him an e-mail back saying she's busy "killing rats this week". This is Texas speak for "i'm blowing you off". Sweety actually thought that she had rats in her house and was busy exterminating them.

At about 10 p.m. on April 11, 2001 Chickie signs onto her computer. And sees Sweety's name up on the buddy list as signed on. She tries to click off AOL but she's laying on her arm funny and before she can hit the little red X, Sweety has sent her an IM. For a moment she debates over whether or not to just unplug the computer and then say her power went out but being polite wins over.

Somehow the subject of being hungry comes up and she asks him if he'd like to meet her at Taco Bell. (thinking this would be her way of asking him out on their date and of course he's gonna say no cause it's so late) And he says yes. Chickie's been cleaning the house all day and all of her underwear is in the dryer. And she's not looking to impress anyway. She puts on her rattiest jeans, shoes with no socks, a charity event bowling t-shirt, a wet bra and slicks her hair back in a broke pony tail. Then she hops in her sweet black Chevy truck with the silver lettering on the back that says "Devil to Some ~ Angel to Others" and she is off to Taco Bell. Only to realize that it is closed.

Sweety pulls up nanoseconds after she realizes the place is closed. And the first thing she thinks is "Oh crap. He's good looking." Her second thought is "Well, he's so good looking that he's probably not bright enough to string together sentences." He gets out of his car and she's feeling bad that she had him come to a place that was closed at 11 p.m. so she says the first thing that comes to her polite mind "Would you like to go eat at IHOP? I know they're open. It's only about 30 minutes away. I'll drive." And while she's asking she's hoping he'll say no because that would mean at least an hour of drive time that she's gonna have to make conversation with this good looking guy who's probably not smart. And he's gonna know he's good looking and be one of guy's that lets you know it.

He says yes and spends the whole time in the truck looking at the inside of his shirt. She thought it was some kind of crazy, serial killer trait but she finds out later that he'd stopped on the side of the road to change into a clean shirt and thought it was on backwards.

They get to IHOP and notice each others quirks. He orders a glass of milk and she is horrified. Doesn't he know restaurant milk is usually contaminated? You should never drink milk unless you pour it out of the jug in your kitchen and know it's not spoiled. And then he puts ice in it. She tries to explain to him her restaurant-milk-contamination theory but he is not swayed. He drinks the milk with zest and she almost vomits.

Sweety notices Chickie has ordered a whole plateful of food and isn't doing anything except picking pecans out of her pancakes. "What a wasteful person." he thinks. Later he finds out that she's just socially retarded and can't hardly eat in front of people.

At one point he says "So, you like bowling, huh?" And she thinks that he's really full of himself. She knows he's a bowler, does he think everyone else is too? Then he points to her charity bowling shirt and she feels like the biggest dork in the world. And she says "No. It was the only thing clean."

She's trying to poke down some food when all of a sudden, she hears something that sounds like a gunshot. She chokes, sputters, ducks down in the booth and then sees Sweety snickering because he's just popped a straw so it would make that sound. And she sees that look on his face and thinks "Oh wow. I could so like this guy. Too bad he lives in Florida."

After their midnight dinner Chickie asks him if he'd go to lunch with her the next day. She wanted an opportunity to get dressed and put some make-up on so he could see what she "really" looked like.

But when she talks to him the next day he tells her he can't eat with her because his sister can't babysit for him. Chickie is flabbergasted. All the signs were there she thought. She decides that Sweety must be gay. Then she tells her friend Elaine that she met the most perfect man last night, except he lives in Florida and he's gay. But it gives her hope that maybe she can find a nice heterosexual man living closer, perhaps Dallas. Sweety calls her back 15 minutes later and agrees to the date.

And they had a great time.

And they were married 86 days later and are living happily ever after.

The end.