Worst Date Ever

I’ve always been a sucker for British men, but usually that doesn’t make them con artists. I had already decided to put aside dating for the year, but such as happens when you make a final and irrevocable decision; you invite the universe to change your mind. So, half-way through the year I was surprised to get an email forwarded from a spiritual dating site where I had initially posted a “don’t-come-hither” profile. I had posted that profile three years before just so I could contact someone I saw there. That hadn’t worked out and so I forgot about the free profile as I knew no full-blooded male would ever want to reply to an un-photographed, self-confessed, psychic witch. I was wrong. Even after I admitted the profile was seriously old and more of a joke than anything, he persisted. We traded photographs and when he told me he lived in London, I was hooked. I can’t say no to British men. My one and only weakness and the universe was laughing its head off!

When we met in Houston, I had already spent several months conversing with him on-line. I knew he was far from perfect, but something about him made me keep coming back. I hadn’t thought we would be meeting because he lived in London and I lived in North Carolina but suddenly my mother took ill and I had to go to Houston to stay with her. When I mentioned this, he told me he had gotten a visa to enter the US as an extra for a film company and he was going to be in Houston too. It seemed like fate. Boy, was it!

The first date was dreamy. He was just exactly my type. We watched a movie together and I dropped him off at a home he was sharing with three other guys. Apparently, he did not have much money coming from London to the US so as to get a car or enough time to get a driver’s license. Since I had already rented a car, we used mine. We saw a movie, talked about a variety of things, including a visit to an acupuncturist he had that day, and I found him enchanting even though he had the curious habit of swatting me on the rear when I least expected it. That should have been my clue but for some reason the British accent threw me off. At least, that’s my justification. We agreed that he should move to a closer hotel near where I was staying so I didn’t have to make another hour trip on Houston highways to visit him. He agreed and told me that next time we’d have dinner and he would come back with me and we would look for a different hotel then. All seemed to be going well that was up until the second date.

He asked me to pick him up a little early because he had to run by the grocery store and in Texas everything is miles away from each other. So, I agreed. He tumbled into the car with a laptop, insisting that he had to work at some point, and as he eased himself into the seat next to me I caught the distinct aroma of fresh sweat. I turned sharply to see what had just landed next to me and there sat a porcupined creature, oozing sweat and grease, with hair matted closely to his skull. The stench was unbelievable. For a moment, I was struck dumb, but soon recovered my senses.

“I wasn’t worth showering for today?” I asked in the mildest tone I could muster.

“Are you suggesting I smell?” He said, his eyebrows knotting together like a cumulus cloud forming on the horizon.

“Well, somewhat,” I suggested. “Maybe we can stop by and get you some deoderant?”

“I don’t use the stuff.” He informed me. “However, I do need some toothpaste and black sheets.”

“Black sheets?” I asked curiously.

“They’re to keep the light from filtering in through the hotel windows. I’m having trouble sleeping because the light keeps coming in. I just put the sheets up over the curtains and that keeps all the light out. I like it all dark when I sleep.”

That was about the strangest request I had ever heard, but seeing as he wasn’t the first person I’d met with sleeping fetishes, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

While he searched the aisles for toothpaste, I decide to go get some toiletries like aftershave, razors, and deoderant. He came down the aisle spotted me getting the toiletries and told me he didn’t use aftershave either! I said:”Well, maybe you’ll like it once you try it.”

We got into a bit of fight and soon the aftershave crashed to the floor spraying blue liquid across the entire aisle.

“Look what you did!” He insisted. He looked around quickly and said: “Quick, let’s get out of here before they figure out you broke it and make you pay for it.”

“They don’t make you pay for things you break here in the States!” I informed him. “And besides, they need to know so they can clean the aisle before someone trips.”

So, we told the clerk what happened but we still weren’t out of there. He still wanted his black sheets.

As we marched down the aisle to look at the sheets, he swatted me once more on the rear!

“Please don’t do that anymore,” I told him as politely as I could.

“Why?” He grinned. “No one’s looking.”

We pick out the black sheets and as we’re settling up at the cashier’s, I start feeling dizzy. At the time, I had been having erratic blood sugar spins and this time I felt it dropping as it had been a stressful two hour drive there, and I hadn’t had dinner yet because we were haggling over deoderant and black sheets. I was becoming dizzy and confused. That’s when he asks me to pay for the sheets because he’s too poor and he’s got to pay for hotel rooms. Can you believe I actually did? But, I was fuming. Just a few days before he had seen an acupuncturist and they are not cheap by any standards! He couldn’t even buy himself his own sheets? But, all I wanted to do was get out of there as quick as possible and put food in my mouth before I fainted. I didn’t want to haggle over the toiletries or the sheets anymore. I figured once we were at dinner the whole thing would blow over.

We never made it to dinner.

We get outside and he starts ranting about his laptop that he left in the car. I can’t find my keys in my purse and I think I either dropped them when the aftershave fell or when we were paying for the sheets. He gets panicked over the thought that the laptop is stuck inside of the car and instead of offering to help me find my keys, he tells me: “You go into the store and get your keys and I’ll stay here and guard the car.”

I looked at him like he was an idiot. The car was locked.

I get my keys and am so relieved to finally be able to find a place to eat, and I unlock the car and just as I’m getting in he says: “Oh, you forgot to buy something.”

“What?” I said, my fingers strangling the car wheel.

“Condoms.” He yells at me. “You have to buy condoms.”

I said: “You’re going to stand in a parking lot and scream to the whole world that I’m suppose to buy you condoms? Who said I was sleeping with you?”

“You don’t want to buy condoms?”

“Get in the car,” I told him. “We got to go to dinner.”

It wasn’t soon afterwards that I dropped him back at his house while he told me what a lousy person I was. As I landed him back on his doorstep, I yelled: “Get out!” and I threw the toiletries and sheets out after him and sped back to my own place home. It briefly crossed my mind that maybe the reason he wanted those black sheets was to have a place to put my dead body in where the blood wouldn’t show. That was by far the worst date anyone’s ever had, I think.