The date

She only had one picture and it looked like it was taken during the greatest storm of fog to ever hit the East Coast but beneath the curtain of perspiration I thought I caught a glimpse of what could only described as beauty. I printed the picture out and viewed it with a magnifying glass, counting out each mega pixel on her chin, following the hazy outline of her curvaceous figure. For over five minutes I studied the picture using all the powers of female observation I’d accumulated over my 36 years and finally I made the decision. I would go on a date with her. Deep down I doubted this decision but the prospect of spending a Friday night at home didn’t seem like much of an option. So, I E-mailed her back and told her that it would be great to meet her. How about that Mexican bar off of Interstate 83 that serves margaritas in hollowed out gourds? Accepted. I wasn’t sure about this online dating thing but what the Hell? It couldn’t be as bad as the last one could it?

I arrived at the Mexican restaurant a few minutes before the scheduled rendezvous and quickly downed a Guinness so my jaw would be properly greased when she came through the door, which was twenty minutes late. I saw her first through the old west style double saloon doors and in fact her face was just as beautiful as I’d imagined. I waved and she waved back. I turned towards back around because it isn’t polite to stare. A moment later she slid into the chair next to me. We ordered drinks--me another Guinness and she a margarita—and we commenced with the obligatory series of getting acquainted questions and then something happened. I think she hit a button behind her ear and suddenly her mouth was running on turbo: she was a real estate agent, had a son that was a star athlete (aren’t they all), her sister was a slut, her mother was cold and uncaring, her ex-husband was a meth abuser, she wasn’t popular in high school, she was demanding, she could be cold too.

I just marginally heard these things looking into her eyes, wondering if it was wrong to try to sleep with her on the first date. She then announced she had to use the bathroom and got up. I slammed the rest of my Guinness and pushed my cup aside. My eyes started at the top and worked down her slim torso and then stopped abruptly. The sound of a needle scratching across a record filled my ears. Her ass was HUGE. The saloon doors had hidden this from me upon her entrance. I don’t mean big in a pleasant curvy way but I mean HUGE in a doctor Frankenstein transplanted Orson Well’s ass to Audrey Hepburn’s torso HUGE. I spit up my Guinness and coughed like I’d inhaled nuclear fallout. How did her ass get that big, I wondered and if it was that big now how big would it be in five years? I panicked. Suddenly the ramifications of all she said came back to me: I don’t like to travel, I don’t like ethnic food of any kind, I sleep with my dogs and my son, I eat McDonald’s every day. “No, stop it!” I cried inside my head. I grabbed the edges of the table and tried to calm myself. I needed a way out of this Mexican restaurant. I quickly phoned my Uncle Joe who was downtown having a beer with friends. “Call me in five minutes. I need an excuse to get out of this date.”

When she came out of the bathroom her ass seemed to have grown another two feet in diameter. I thought I could stick flag on her butt and claim it for America and the build condos on it.

Damn it, snap out of it, I told myself.

“Sorry it took so long. I was talking to my son and my sister on the phone,” she said sitting down.

“I uh…”

Just then my cell phone rang. It was my Uncle Joe.

“Your car broke down? I’m out with someone now. Stranded on the highway? Okay. Goodbye,” I said.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“My uncle Joe, evidently his Yukon broke down out in some Godforsaken redneck area. I’m going to have to cut our date short and go save him. I hate to do that though.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” I understand.

“Great, maybe we can do this again sometime,” I said and threw down forty dollars.

I was out those saloon doors before she could heave her ass off that bar stool and was probably downtown drinking a beer with my uncle before she got out of the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant.

“How did the date go?” Uncle Joe asked as we sat at the bar at an Irish Pub.

“Another beer, bartender,” I said.