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March 16, 2006
Bad Date and the Bad Diners
In yesterday's entry we touched on the subject of Bad Dates. When you realize you have a bad date, in the fruit sense, you simply toss it aside and reach into the bag for a new one. When you realize you have a bad date in the she-chews-with-her-mouth-open sense, well, you gotta suck it up and see the date through.
Chewing was not the problem I had the particular bad date mentioned yesterday. I just wanted to make a weak comparison to fruits you can buy by the bag and that was the quickest way I could see to getting there. You don't always get gold here at What's a Delmer Look Like, but I do spell check each entry.
As I've said before, I attended Miami University in Oxford Ohio where we like to say Miami was a university when Florida still belonged to the Spanish. We're a sensitive lot when it comes to the uneducated assuming a reference to Miami University means Miami, Florida. Which is really the University of Miami. Just two days ago I saw a basketball score in which University of Miami was represented as Miami (Fla), which made me feel good as I'm so used to seeing Miami (OH). (Yes, I'm afraid we sometimes have a Napoleon complex when it comes to our alma mater. I don't know why. We certainly have a better looking website.)
When I was at Miami there were about 15,000 students. I honestly don't remember if that counts the regional campuses as well as the Oxford campus, or just Oxford. It was big enough that you didn't see the same people all the time every day, but small enough that if you knew someone it wasn't uncommon to stumble across them, once in a while, on your way to and from class.
And so, it wasn't uncommon for me to pass Bad Date periodically. Not often, but often enough. On the sidewalks going to class. In the bookstore. Once while I was going up the stairs in one of the academic buildings she passed me coming down.
Let's say half-a-dozen times over the course of the first part of senior year we had a close encounter. And it's a close encounter only, not a real encounter, for while the two of us were closer to each other than you are now to your monitor (probably ... I'm not really familiar with your computing habits) she never saw me. She was always looking the other way.
The boneheads among you -- mostly men -- are thinking, how fortunate for you ... you avoided an awkward situation, the real boneheaded among you, the men who didn't realize that some women give out fake phone numbers until you read it here yesterday, the men who think you can come off a shitty date in junior year and then several months later act as if nothing bad happened because you know the intervening summer has erased all bad feelings -- hell, you don't have any bad feeling and the date was just as bad for you -- are thinking, how unfortunate, it would have been nice to exchange pleasantries with the lass. (That 'lass' part is for the boneheaded Irish men among you. St. Paddy's day is just around the corner.)
The women among you know what was really going on. She saw me. She was i g n o r i n g me. Giving me the cold shoulder. Bitching me out under her breath. Hoping I'd trip and tumble across the slant walk.
Senior year at Miami I worked at Lottie Moon's, that was mostly a restaurant but sometimes -- especially during Monday night three-for-one triple trouble -- became a bar. Just beneath Lottie Moon's was mostly a bar that also served food. Both establishments were owned by the same couple.
One day three guys came into Lottie Moon's while we were mostly a restaurant. It was an off night. Business was slow -- they were the only table in my section. There was something about the guys that made me wonder about them. They did not look like our typical customer (college kids, parents). They ordered pizza and a pitcher of beer. My spider sense suggested I card them. The part of me that didn't want to be prejudiced against townies, or non-students in general, held back. I served them. I gave them the necessary attention. I went to the kitchen for a minute.
When I came out of the kitchen the guys were gone. I asked Al, the bartender, where they'd gone. He had not noticed them leaving.
I checked the table for the bill and cash -- sometimes people would leave a wad of money on the table when they left. There was no wad.
I checked the bathroom -- hey, they were drinking beer ... sometimes it works its way through a person in pretty short order.
I decided to take a tour through the downstairs -- in the past we'd had people (once, really) take money off a table upstairs and go downstairs to spend their ill-gotten gains. The criminal element is not always terribly smart.
I was not in the best mood. I was going to have to pay for the pizza and beer if I couldn't find the guys. Still, my anger was focused. When I walked into the front door of the downstairs I noticed Bad Date, her roomie and two guys in a booth against the back wall. I thought she saw me and went to raise my hand to wave. Like I said, I was upset with the criminal element of Oxford, Ohio ... not the world.
She quickly turned her head away from my direction and I thought, she must not have seen me.
I looked over the tables and booths as I made my way to the back door and never saw the dirt balls I was looking for. Bad Date and her friends were chatting -- sitting two booths from the door.
As I walked out the door I heard someone ... well, Bad Date ... clearly say "Ass hole."
Ahhhhh, I thought. She has seen me. She just hates my guts. I'd had a bad date. She'd had a horrible date (bold-and-italic worthy).
There is something about having people steal from you that affects you in a way I can't describe. If you lose money it is a bit bothersome, depressing, whatever. If that same amount, or even less, is stolen from you it is a whole different thing, it puts you in a whole different state of mind.
So there I was. In a whole different state of mind due to the whole different thing that had happened and a woman who, in all fairness, was not a good date herself, was calling me "Ass Hole." And not a slurred-hard-to-understand Ass Hole. It was well enunciated. Crystal clear. Almost as if someone from Cleveland had said it. (Clevelanders over pronounce words to the point it is amazing that they ever get anything said.)
I reentered the restaurant through the back door and approached her booth. "Were you talking to me?" I asked.
"No," she quickly assured me.
"I really didn't think so," I said. I was half-tempted to sit with her and her pals to tell my side of the bad-date story. But I had a dine-and-dash check I had to make good and went back up to Lottie's.
The upside the whole thing -- if there is one -- is that it wasn't uncommon for the bartenders to slip the wait staff a beer here and there when they knew we were going to have to make a check good.
Of course, it wasn't uncommon for them to slip us a beer ... just because.
(St. Paddys day is tomorrow? Hey! that means there were serving green beer in Oxford last week. St. Paddy's day always falls during Spring Break so MU students celebrate a week early. Take that University of Miami)
Posted by delmer at March 16, 2006 7:49 AM
Comments
What would you have done had she said, "Yeah I'm talking to you?"
Posted by: The Phoenix at March 16, 2006 12:07 PM
The first sentence out of my mouth would have been, "Let's talk about my roommate for a second."
If that didn't work I'd have been screwed. Women are just better verbal sparrers.
Posted by: delmer at March 16, 2006 12:20 PM
Yeah, I would never get into it with a woman. I'm more likely to just stand there embarassed.
Posted by: The Phoenix at March 16, 2006 11:56 PM