You are about to witness a rare thing here at SSL…a post about me fucking up and embarrassing MYSELF royally. Usually I like to partake in a mono-banter about the little sycophants I call my dates. However, I figure it’s been way too many months since my last post, and what better way to have a comeback than a self-deprecating walk down memory lane.
Picture me, January 2010. I get lonely in the winter and tend to hole up in my dwelling unit with a few good books, too much hot chocolate, and my trusty steed (dog) flopping around in my duvet cover like it’s a pile of snow. My skin gets pale and dry, my hair gets provoked by the chilled electricity in the air, and I hate being cold so I wear way too many layers. None of these things are particularly good for a first date. But I was in a mood one certain Monday after a bad day at work, and Tim had been pestering me about finally meeting up. We had been chatting back and forth, sending the obligatory one to two texts per day to show mutual interest, and finally we had a night where we were both free.
I’ll set the stage for you on this particular Monday evening. I was still living outside the city at the time, a good hour’s drive outside the city. And because of my odd winter body image, I decided to go all out for this date. I kind of felt like there wouldn’t exactly be chemistry on this date, but wanted to test my intuition anyway. If I looked like a fool and he turned out to be a douchebag, well then not much lost. And if he was cool and someone I wanted to get to know better, well then he would be able to handle my version of hot to trot. So, I figured, what better way to debut my new weave than on a first date with someone I’ve never met before, who really has no idea what I look like besides a few pictures where I have short blonde hair. I purchased this weave from the Jessica Simpson “Hair Do” line, which, by the way, I highly recommend. It’s a bit heavy and I wouldn’t wear the full hair piece in the summertime.
For anyone out there who doesn’t know what in the fuck I’m talking about, this weave I bought was 18 inches long, and I clip it in just under the crown of my head. Some of my own hair covers the clips and my bangs just do their own thing. I can tell you that to the naked eye, it looks somewhat synthetic (you CAN buy human hair if you’d like to part with $300, however I only wanted to part with $49.99) But in a dark bar, after a few beers, well…I might be able to get away with it.
So I clip in my weave, put on an odd hue of eyeshadow (I believe it was called Shocking Sapphire), some skinny jeans, boots, a shirt, a cardigan, a scarf, a hat, and what I like to call my black sleeping bag coat because it looks like a black sleeping bag. I’d like to think that at that particular time I thought I looked good, but in reminiscing about the evening, I realize I must have appeared a tad unhinged to some of the common folk I passed on the street.
I park my car about seven blocks away, and walk myself from 12th and Locust over to Good Dog Bar, a place which my date picked. Now Tim was your average looking fellow, and thank god it was dark in the bar because I was starting to have mini panic attacks about what my head looked like from the back. I envisioned myself having to get up and walk to the bathroom backwards so Tim never caught a glance of it. I sat extremely erect on my barstool and didn’t move my neck, but rather, the entire upper half of my body when I went to turn in a particular direction. I knew right away, basically because Tim’s social cues and body language conveyed it to me, that there was no chemistry on this date. No modicum of sexual attraction existed betwixt us, which I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved about.
Because ever the eternal optimist, I had also envisioned an evening of debaucherous lewdity (I made that word up) where Tim threw me around on his bed, pressed me up against random walls in his house, bent me over his couch, dipped my head in his fishtank in the throes of passion, and as he went to grab my hair to pull my head back up and jackhammer fuck me, my weave came out in his hand. Good thing there was no chance of that happening.
So Tim and I decide to put ourselves through the torture of getting to know you questions and have a few beers. After about an hour, I asked if he would walk with me to feed my meter, and perhaps go to a different venue since my car was across Broad. At this request, Asshole Tim made his presence known. He remarked that it was a big inconvenience for him to have to walk and this was his favorite bar and whiney whiney whiney…
As soon as we fed the meter, Tim went in the first bar he saw. I wish I could tell you the name but I was a few beers in and not feeling particularly sentimental about remembering each particular detail of this date. We went to the back bar, which was completely empty, and before we even sat down, Tim announced to the bartender that he was very happy she wasn’t wearing an engagement or wedding ring because now he’d have someone to flirt with. And this is precisely the moment where I started what I fondly recall as getting shitfaced into oblivion. After my fourth vodka grapefruit, and Tim and the bartender exchanging numbers, and Tim telling me how much better than me he was, and then threatening to sue me if I stole any of the ideas we discussed on this date, we returned to my car. I got in the driver’s seat, with no intention of driving anywhere, and Tim asked for a ride home.
I couldn’t stop laughing at this point at the oddity of the evening, how in god’s name I got myself into this situation, the fact that my weave hadn’t yet fallen out, and that Tim was truly expecting me to be able to drive.
He asked me “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, it’s just that I can’t drive anywhere. I’m drrrrrrrunnnk off my arsssssse!”
“Well, can I drive myself home in your car?”
(Tim and Kelly exchange positions in the car, so Tim is now in driver’s seat. No words are spoken on the 10 block drive to Graduate Hospital where Tim lives. Tim parks the car.)
“Well, Kelly, what are you gonna do now?”
“I’m gonna sit in my car until I sober up (giggling).”
“Ugh…I can’t let you sleep in your car. You can sleep on my couch.”
“Ok sounds good.”
So Tim did have an ounce of gentleman in him after all. I think it was really that he didn’t want to end up feeling guilty the next morning if he discovered that I had been kidnapped or held up or gone frolicking with some street cats. So we went inside, he grabbed his laptop, and began to go upstairs. I looked around, saw a comfortable looking couch, and with my weave and sleeping bag coat still on, fell backwards and shut my eyes.
“Tiiiiiiimmmmmm…..I know your secretttt! You’re gonna jerk off with that laptop hahahahaa cuz you know I’m not gonna put outttt.”
And suddenly, it’s 5:14 a.m. I am so desperate to pee that I almost can’t get off the couch my stomach is so swollen. I decide that I need to be completely stealth with getting upstairs to the only bathroom in the house (which I discovered after stealthily tiptoeing around the downstairs unable to find a toilet). Tim’s dog came to sniff me, and I whispered to him “c’mon little doggie, don’t give away me. I’m just tryin to take a leak, little fella.” He didn’t give me away, and I tiptoed back downstairs. Knowing I was finally sober enough to drive, I reached into my jacket pocket and almost shit myself in excitement when I felt my car key IN MY POCKET! No waking up Tim, I was gonna get out of there just fine. Except for one thing. I had no idea where Tim parked my car.
The only chance I had was to wander around South Philly pressing my car alarm button in hopes that if I got within a certain radius, it would call out to me and we would soon be reunited. And after 44 minutes of aimless walking, me and my little car were together again. I had left Tim’s door unlocked just in case my ingenious plan didn’t work out so well, so I quickly memorized where my car was parked, and walked back to Tim’s house to lock his front door. I then walked all the way back to my car, got in, and the dork in me was actually screaming “yipeeeeeee” out loud as if I had gotten away with something spectacular.
