I don't know if you were around here at the time, but last summer I made the unfortunate mistake of trying Internet dating. The results were… well they were unsatisfactory. Let's leave it at that. However, I didn't think that a blind date could have the same problems, after all, it's a friend's recommendation, right? The trouble all started with a bar receipt. My friend, Yosemite, brought it into work and gave it to me. Written on the back of it was a note from a woman named Tawny, telling me about herself and providing her email address. Apparently Yosemite had met her at the bar and decided that she and I were a good match. He told her about me and she provided the note of introduction on the receipt.
Yosemite thought she was cute, I'm single, and God knows I like sex, so I sent her an email. I was surprised when a few hours later I had a message from her, not in my email, but in my voice mail at work. I was surprised, but then realized that my email automatically stamps my work phone number on the bottom of it, so I returned her call from home that evening. We spoke on the phone for a little while and I told her I'd call her the next night and we could arrange to meet somewhere. Later that same evening I returned home to find a strange number on my phone's list of callers. Then I recognized it - it was Tawny's number - how had she gotten my home number now? Caller ID? Must've been. Kind of odd. The next day I spoke to Yosemite on the phone. "So what's she like, anyway?" I haven't mentioned that she's called my home and work four times in the last 24 hours. "She seems like a really nice girl. A lot of fun. Great sense of humour." "And she's cute, right?" "Well… yeah. I mean, to be honest Shaggy, I was really pretty smashed." "Pardon?" "I was pretty drunk, but don't worry about it. She had a great smile. You should go out with her." Boys and girls, friends and neighbours, citizens of the realm, I am nothing if not adventurous. When I see something vaguely unsettling, lurking in the dark, shady places deep in the jungles of our modern world, I am intrigued. When I hear the dismaying sound of growling, ripping and gnawing coming from under the basement stairs, I am captivated. Oh it's not that I'm not afraid. It's not that I don't want to just go home and have a nice hot cup of coffee in front of the fire. It's just that some sick part of me has to go look, go take a peek under the stairs, maybe creep right in there with a hockey stick or tent pole clutched in hand. I'm powerless to resist these dark, primal urges. When something awful presents itself, I must go see exactly how bad it could possibly be. Let's just call it my cross to bear and leave it at that. So I call her up that night and arrange to meet her for coffee at a Starbucks. I pick a Starbucks that is actually located inside a Chapters bookstore, because I tried this once before it turned out to be a good way to get to know someone. I arrive a couple of minutes early and take a seat just inside the door. I am still seated there a few minutes later, inspecting my shoe with a critical eye, when Tawny walks in and introduces herself. I am immediately impressed by her size. She's not the biggest surprise I've ever received, but if good things come in small packages then she is distinctly bad. |
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