Either that, or she has a remarkably low tolerance for pain and suffering, in which case I'm glad I didn't tell her what happened the first and last time I was set up on a blind date.
A friend told me she thought I'd be perfect for her friend Doug. Doug is his actual name - I'm doing a public service by revealing it and you can all thank me later should you find yourself attempting to flee a Corvette gracefully and without shoes, like I had to do.
Anyhoo. I spoke with Doug on the phone first, and he seemed smart and funny. We exchanged pictures, and the sight of his face didn't frighten me. So far so good. We arranged to meet, and then it went off the rails.
I agreed to meet him in front of my favourite restaurant, and I would know him because he would be waiting in his Corvette. Foolishly I wore a brand new pair of high heel sandals, and by the time I got to the restaurant my feet were bloody stumps, which is the only reason I later ended up riding in Doug's car - but again I'm getting ahead of myself.
So I'm waiting and oozing blood from my ankles. I can see a Corvette parked across the street, but I don't see a driver. Weird. I wait and bleed another moment. As I'm staring at the Corvette, I see a hand, barely visible, waving over top of the car. Doug has arrived after all, and it's a bit of a shock.
The Corvette, besides being ridiculously uncomfortable and impossible to make a grand exit from without struggling or some kind of assistance, is not a terribly tall vehicle. The average person is perfectly visible standing beside a Corvette. In fact, most people's heads and partial torsos would be visible next to a Corvette. Not Doug.
The top of Doug's head did not make it over top of the Corvette. What I'm trying to tell you without using the words munchkin, little person, garden gnome or pocket-sized is that Doug was WEE. While not officially a midget, dwarf or whatever today's politically-correct term is, Doug was a tiny little mo'fo.
Making matters appear even worse, Doug worked out like a fiend. Rather than stopping work on his upper-body when his neck began to disapear, me must have taken it as a good sign and kept right on going because he had no neck. None that I could see. His attempts to make up for his shortcomings by body-building (Ha! Get it? Shortcomings? Yeah I know. I'm stopping now.) made him appear even smaller.
Doug stood about 4'8. In barefeet I'm 5'11. The barbed-wire sandals I had on would have easily added another three inches, and I had no choice but to come to one sickening realization: I was on a date with a Cabbage Patch Kid.
The restaurant I chose was too busy, so we set off walking for another destination. Crossing the street I felt a sudden and irrational urge to take his hand for safety. When we got to his choice of restaurant my feet had been downgraded from Stable to Critical, soon to be approaching Intensive Care levels.
We ordered our food, and Doug leans across the table and puts his little hand over mine. He asks where I see us going, because he feels a very strong connection between us. I suppose any time I'm crotch level with a man there's a strong connection, but in this case I felt Doug being crotch level with me was not a good sign for the relationship. And I told him so.
Despite my feet crying out for mercy, the fact my date was making me look like a pedophile and the only thing I could find on the menu I felt like eating was chicken strips, I started off answering him in a polite, but firm manner.
I told him that I didn't feel a connection, and did not feel we would go any further. He wanted to know why not. I evaded the question, until pushed to the breaking point, leading to the following exchange:
Bambi: To be honest with you, and this is by no means your problem but it is something I'm sensitive to given I'm much taller than the average woman...I'm just not comfortable with my height around you. You're a good-looking guy, you seem nice...the problem is my own.
(Translation: The thought of sleeping with you ever creeps me the f*ck out, but I'm trying very hard to be nice given my feet will require skin grafts and your eyes are level with my boobs even though we're sitting down so can I please just eat my freaking chicken strips in peace. Thank you.)
Doug:
Doug: YOU F*CKING PRINCESS! HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT! HOW DARE YOU COME UP IN HERE WEARING YOUR LITTLE F*CKING DRESS AND YOUR HAIR ALL DONE AND YOU"RE A F*CKING PRINCESS WHO THINKS YOU"RE TOO GOOD FOR EVERYBODY!
I apologize for the all-caps, but he was really yelling at me. The entire restaurant can back me up on this point, because everybody else went silent so they could turn around in their chairs and really concentrate on what the couple who had escaped from the circus was going on about.
Also, I'm really not sure why my hair had to be dragged into the conversation. I'm pretty sure I brushed it that evening but I'm not convinced I did anything special enough to my hair to make deserving of special mention during Doug's 'roid rage interlude but there you have it.
Immediately he apologized, and I immediately suggested we get the bill and go our separate ways. My chicken strips were overdone anyway. He argued we could still have a nice night together(!) but I was finished.
Unfortunately, so were my feet. I really couldn't have made it all the way home and I didn't relish going barefoot for 20 blocks so when Doug apologized again, offered me a ride and suggested it was too nice a night not to take a very short ride in a convertible I had very little choice but to agree.
I fall into the vehicle, because really there's no other polite way to sit down in a car that forces your knees to rest on your eyelids. I take my shoes off, and hope I don't bleed on his floor mats. We travel approximately four blocks before stopping at a red light, and Doug turns to me with a question.
Doug: I need to ask you something.
Bambi: What's that?
Doug: Have you accepted the power and love of Jesus Christ our Saviour into your heart?
Well.
This was my cue to leave. I grabbed my shoes, opened the door and proceeded to struggle my way out of the car. All the while Doug is asking me where I'm going, and telling me to get back in the car so we could talk about it. He was born again with God, and he really felt I needed the Word.
Arms and legs flailing in desperation to extricate myself from the bucket seat, I tell him I'm a lost cause because I'm a practicing witch. I'm really not sure why I said that, but I was really wishing one of us could magically disapear and white or black magic, I didn't care which, would have been welcome.
He must have taken it to heart because as soon as I was out and the light turned green, he peeled through the intersection. I walked the rest of the way home barefoot. So great was my desire to call the friend who set me up with Doug in the first place, that I barely felt a thing.
When I finally had her on the phone, she couldn't understand what the fuss was about. She remembered he was short, but not that short...oh wait a minute...oh yeah...THAT Doug. Now it's coming back. The one time they did fool around she remembered it was kind of icky because it felt like she was making out with a toddler. Amd doesn't he have some weird thing for Jesus?
Yeah. That Doug.
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