worst date ever

from the Archive. This won me a nice little book prize from Two Dollar Radio, which is frankly the only glory this Vancouverite has ever gotten out of the Manhattan literary establishment, aside from the glories of Gawker commenter status.

Bad dateI should have known it was going to be a long night when he asked me if I minded going out “after rush hour, when the bus fare goes down.”

He was tall. He was handsome. He was fit. He was educated, intelligent, in law school.

He was in love with Rebecca.

How do I know this? He told me. At length.

In the restaurant, he insisted on ordering a particular dessert wine with the main course. Bewildered, I wondered if it was some new foodie fad. No, he said, it was because it was called “Sweet Rebecca,” and that was his ex-girlfriend’s name.

She dropped him. She was cruel, and sweet, and had hair like golden silk, or so I was informed. When not explaining how perfect she had been, he spent many a long, silent moment staring into the glass and murmuring “Sweet Rebecca.”

At one point he pulled out a ten-dollar bill and showed me the family resemblance to John A. MacDonald, to which I could only reply, “Yes, one of Canada’s truly great alcoholics.” It was a little too late to impress me by then. And he’d drunk most of the wine, although I could have used a Martini or four, myself.

On the way home, he borrowed bus fare; I never intended to see him again, however decorative he may have been, but at a dollar seventy-five to get rid of him it was a steal. On the long, no, endless ride home, he had one more golden memory for me. Halfway home, he slowly removed his ski gloves and proceeded, methodically, to pick his nose.

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

32 thoughts on “worst date ever

  1. That was really a date. And he really was descended from John A. MacDonald and really was handsome and intelligent and fit and well-dressed and all of it. And he also picked his nose. At first he tried with the skidoo gloves on, then realized they wouldn’t fit, so then he took them off. He asked me to hold them, too. Some guy on the Skytrain gave me a pitying look as I left, as if he’d been there on the other side of the gender wall.

  2. On the long, no, endless ride home, he had one more golden memory for me. Halfway home, he slowly removed his ski gloves and proceeded, methodically, to pick his nose.

    Oh my god, I just choked on a tall skim mocha from Starbucks. HOLY HELL! LMAO that is classic!

  3. ” And he also picked his nose. At first he tried with the skidoo gloves on, then realized they wouldn’t fit, so then he took them off. He asked me to hold them”

    I bet sweet Rebecca would have held them.

  4. I dunno, Rain, I looked it up, and it is directed by Sean Penn. I do not tend to care too much for material he is attracted to. It goes awful dark and sordid for me.

  5. Dark and sordid is the perfect way to describe this movie. I must say, though, that I loathe Sean Penn but revere him for what he created with this. It’s a dark thing of beauty, like a Joseph Conrad novel.

  6. Pingback: breadsticks from hell : part i « celluloid blonde

  7. Pingback: breadsticks from hell : part ii « celluloid blonde

  8. Rain, I am sorry, you are linked on all three segments and are going to be experiencing pinging frenzy here. I am thinking the delete key might be your friend.

  9. Pingback: breadsticks from hell : part iii « celluloid blonde

  10. Pingback: bad dates « celluloid blonde

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.