The Worst date of All Time, Part 3: the Final Chapter

Part 3: Excuse me ma’am, but you have a marine creature on your face.

If you’ve missed the first or second part of the worst date of all time, you can read the first part here and the second part here.

If you want the short, short version, I was out on the worst date of all time with a man named Bodie (do not let his awesome name fool you into thinking he is actually awesome. that’s where I went horribly, horribly wrong) who lied about being blind, hated Digital Underground, didn’t know what the word ‘collection’ meant, forced me to see Harry Potter, texted his mother for four hours during our date, thinks Freemasons are a race of people, and still had time to judge me because I’m Catholic. Did I mention that he talked about samurai swords for an hour? Or that his favorite books were "elven novels"? Or that I was pretty sure that his mother was dead in his basement and he just talked to her anyway? By this point in the date, I was looking for a serial murderer who only serial murdered 34-year-old guys that lied about legally blind and collected samurai swords.

Fig. 1.1
"...and also, my mom's dead in the basement!"



















That actually catches you up pretty accurately.

After Bodie told me that we would probably not be able to date very long because I was Catholic and “he was Freemason” (which is not a race) and Catholics hated Freemasons (they don’t), he asked me if I could drive him to Freebirds for dinner because he didn’t want to have to ask his mother when he got home. Which, I’m sure, is very thoughtful of him if you were his mother. But I wasn’t. And I was trying to make his head explode with mind waves like those things from the movie Scanners.

Mind explosions: Not as easy as they look

So I tell him that I’m not hungry, but I’ll drive him to get a burrito (which, by the way, is where he wanted to go even if I was hungry. If you are a dude and you are reading this right now, please listen to me when I say, unless under mutual consent, DO NOT TAKE YOUR FIRST DATE TO A BURRITO PLACE. UNLESS THAT BURRITO PLACE IS CONSIDERABLY MORE AWESOME THAN FREEBIRDS).

So we’re in the car, driving to Freebirds; I clearly have nothing else to say to him because he functions on a totally separate plane of existence than me. Like the plane of existence that George Clooney was operating on when he read the Batman and Robin script and said “it’s PERFECT!”

Fig. 1.2
"No really. It's PERFECT."

What I DO know, however, is that he is attempting to use the armrest in my car as a leveraging point to assault my hand.

So I’m driving with my left arm and my right arm crossed over my chest like I’m hand-delivering a leprosy patient to a leper colony when he thinks that now is as good a time as any to ask why I’m thwarting his romantic advances. (I assume that taking me to see a movie I didn’t want to see, talking about things I didn’t want to talk about, explaining that I hate a made up race of people because I’m Catholic and attempting to force me against my will on numerous occasions to hold his hand was Bodie’s attempt at a romantic advance.)

Bodie: Man, I’ve never had this much trouble getting someone to hold my hand.
Me: …
Bodie: ...
Radio: (faintly) …Alright stop what you’re doin’ ‘cause I’m about to ruin the image and the style that you’re used to…
Bodie: …
Me: …
Bodie: I mean you haven’t held my hand all night!
Me: Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh heh. Yeah.

Yes. I sounded like a sickly lawnmower turning over. That’s what I sound like when I get nervous. Sue me. At least I don’t talk about fairies and elves and swords. And also, the best thing I could come up with was “yeah”. And regarding his claim that would lead a rational person to believe that he has been rewarded with much hand-holding on previous dates, my belief is that he either he tricked me on the serial murderer test and just cut hands off to hold them after he serial murdered short blond girls, or dated people that must have looked and acted something a little like Margaret McPoyle from It’s Always Sunny.

Fig. 1.3
People Bodie must normally date if he is not, in fact, a serial murderer.

Thankfully, we got to Freebirds in time for me to avoid another horrible question.

Bodie: Hey, mind if we eat here? I know you said you weren’t hungry, but maybe you can get a soda or something.
Me: Sounds awesome. (Note-this did not sound awesome. And my voice conveyed this sentiment)

So we’re standing in line. I decided to go ahead and get something while we were out, and that I would just pay for my own (because the very, very last thing I want is for him to have any false pretenses of possible future dates). He’s in front of me (of course he is. Because he’s a gentleman). He orders his food while I’m trying to decide what I want. When I get to the cashier to pay for mine, the sum seems too much. Like double.

I’ll break here to explain that I’m not a chemist or geophysicist or mathematician. When someone starts talking in numbers, I either just agree or fall into a narcoleptic coma because of the stress it requires to add and subtract. My math is actually pretty shaky, but one burrito bowl and one water does not equal almost $19.

Are you guessing what happened here? Have you been following the chain of events on his horrible, horrible date that, without fail, would have, of course, inevitably led me to pay for not only my meal, but the meal of my legally blind, unemployed, 34-year-old date who likes samurai swords, elven novels and Harry Potter and hates Digital Underground and Catholics?

When I realized what had just happened, I felt like someone had set me on imaginary fire. I wanted to run around violently, just punching and kicking and screaming and rolling.

Yes. Just like this.

I’m going to skip over the disgusting way he ate (it was like he just opened his mouth, threw burrito in that general direction and hoped he landed a good shot). I’m going to skip over the part where he begged me to meet his mother (and I had to say “I don’t meet moms on the first date, Bodie, sorry”). I’m going to skip the part where he was blatantly racist (and here I thought I was a bad person for being a Catholic that didn’t hate anyone at all). I’m just going to skip straight to the part where he assaulted my face with his face.

Somehow, after a very awkward 15 minute car ride (awkward on my part, not his. He was apparently completely comfortable), we made it to his mother’s. My purse was in the trunk of my car and, because I get pulled over with a fair amount of regularity, I like to have everything handy. So I got out of the car to retrieve said purse.

Bodie: Can I get a kiss?
Me: Nope.
Bodie: Really?
Me: Yep.
Bodie: Well can I at least have a hug?
Me: …If I give you a hug will you stop asking for physical contact?
Bodie: Promise.

Ok. Remember how in Part 2, I said that Bodie taught me two things, and that the first was to never worry about hurting the feelings of someone who lied to you about being legally blind?

The second thing I learned was never to trust that the person you’ve avoided contact with all night understands that you do not want their mouth anywhere near your face.

Bodie is tall, maybe 6’2” or so, and I’m about a foot shorter than that, so I was going in for a face-down-my-arms-under-his-quick-and-painless hug. I was even going to throw in a vigorous pat on the back like you do with people you don’t actually want to hug. This, to me, seemed to be an incognito way of throwing in some disguised violence.

Wrong.

I’m not a mean person. I don’t try to hurt people’s feelings. Actually, I tend to put myself out and have even been known to put myself in very uncomfortable situations (for me) to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. I once thought about marrying someone because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings with a break up. See? That level of crazy. So when I tell you this next part, I want you to keep all of that in mind.

I go in for the quick I-never-want-to-see-you-again hug, and that’s when my life flashed before my eyes and everything began to happen in slow motion.

His face was coming toward me. I was trying to duck out of the way. He has very long arms and I was definitely stuck in a weird wrestling (maybe samurai?) paralysis move that did not allow me to escape. In a brief flash, every atrocious moment of the previous four hours played in a terrible sepia-toned, horror movie strobe light in front of my eyes. Also in this movie, the walls are covered with blood and tears and spiders and clown faces.

We’ve all kissed someone that wasn’t necessarily a good kisser. This was beyond that. This was like someone threw a hot, wet octopus at my face. And then that octopus got stuck with all his little octopus suckers and refused to let go.

Fig. 1.4
Nightmarish creature of epic proportions attached to my face.

I summoned all of my strength (I had been working out. No big deal.) and pried his face off of my face, pushed him away and threatened to pepper spray him if he came within five feet of me ever again.

The next day I got a text that said “Hey hun. Sry about lst nite—ur just 2 cute! Maybe we can try agn sat?”

I did not try again Saturday.