Last night, I went on a date. We met in Thousand Oaks, and then went to dinner. We sat at a park and he pushed me on the swings. We climbed around on pull-up bars. I made a necklace out of flowers and he put it on his rear view mirror. Everything was kinda great. At dinner, he stared at me. Uncomfortable.
After dinner, I felt nauseated and told him I might have to go home and puke. How about this: instead of saying, “maybe we should take it easy, then,” he took me on this weird ride up into the mountains and drove like an Andretti. When I asked him to slow down, he continued to lay heavy on the gas pedal.
We were in Calabasas, and on a road worse than Mulholland. Twisty, canyon-ish, and dangerous. I can be quite the crazy driver, but I was about to hand the torch to this guy. It was 10pm and the fog was thick, wrapped around the roads and hills, his headlights were reflecting back into us. I was about to spray California rolls and miso soup on his dash.
I kept saying, “Slow down, dude.. slow it down.”
I’m known for being soft spoken.
He wasn’t listening or he wasn’t hearing me. I kept trying variations of “slow down.”
Then, a car was in front of us and my date was, as DS would say, “Not even buying the guy a drink before fucking him in the ass.”
At this point, my stomach rolling, the car was up on two wheels like some Popeye cartoon, my date was fucking someone else before my eyes, and I yelled, “SLOW DOWN! You’re FREAKING ME OUT, dude!”
He said, “Well, he’s going slow.”
I replied, “Yes, because it’s foggy. He can’t see two feet in front of him! You’re probably scaring him to death!”
Finally, the old man in the car pulled to the side of the road and my date sped around–continuing his fast pace to whatever the hell romantic deathtination he had planned. At this point, I figured he might be taking me up here to kill me, or to make out. I didn’t want to kiss, I wanted to fist fight; I wanted to punch him so hard in the lip, like a boxer, that he stumbled from the force of it.
My only thoughts on the driving are that he was trying to show me how much of a bad ass he could be. We were elevated high enough to be above the clouds, and when we shot through them, he pulled off the highway and killed the engine.
I didn’t budge.
He expected me to come out and look with him, and I must admit that–at a glance–it looked so pretty up there, but I didn’t I was more concerned with keeping my insides from becoming outsides. I waited in the car, and after about 30 seconds, he returned. Without words from him, I said: “Please take me back to my car. I want to go home.”
I was expecting him to say, “Bitch, THIS is your new home–” gunshot, my lifeless body is kicked from the car, and I roll like a rag-doll down the hillsides of Los Angeles. Roll credits.
However, he started the engine and did another crazy drive down the hillside. I could only think, gripping my gut with one hand and my head with the other, “Really? This is how I get to die? With a douchebag stranger?”
Again, I said, “Can you please slow down?”
Nothing. It was like he was Carnie Phillips on her way to the doughnut shop.
I began to think, “Three dates. Is this a deal breaker? I wasn’t asking for the window seat on the flight, I was asking for him to slow down and give a shit about my safety. So is this guy going to use my favorite shirt to wipe grease off the counter because he didn’t HEAR me? Because he doesn’t have the common sense to know that when you have a passenger in a car with you, you don’t drive like you’re #8? Or was Dale #3? I don’t watch nascar.”
The drive home on the 101 was quiet. He turned the radio up and talked to himself–or me–I couldn’t tell. Kept pointing out good songs on his Sirius satellite radio.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked, halfway to Thousand Oaks.
I was calm when I said, “Look, you just shouldn’t drive that way when there is a passenger in the car. I’ve never been up that road before, you scared that man off the road–”
“I didn’t scare him, he was pulling off to see the view.”
“He was pulling off because he was having a heart attack. You were up his ass.”
“Whatever. I wasn’t up his ass.” He paused, then, “Okay, maybe I was a *little* up his ass.”
When we arrived at my car, I leaned over to give him a friendly hug. He stopped me and said, “Are you trying to give me your sushi?”
Not a sexual reference. I had leftover sushi in my hand from our dinner.
I got out of the car and he left; didn’t really make sure I was safe from rapists. It’s okay though. It’s the bad stuff that’s worth remembering on these dates. And maybe, to some gal, his crazy driving was a turn on and, in a sense, he just pulled a bad one off the pack, too. It’s this kind of stuff that I kind of *heart*. Especially when I survive the experience without a scratch, and with the fleeting memories of a slightly sweet–though crazy, and very short lived–romance. Besides, it all helps narrows the field and make *my* dating life more memorable; so, when I’m older, and I’m settled somewhat with the man who some girl passed up because he used the word “dong” during dinner, I can look back fondly on my adventures.
Printed by permission. Visit Mari's blog at http://www.mari-go-round.com/
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