a somewhat unpleasant dating experience

Dukakis88

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sun Nov-07-04 12:07 PM
Original message

a somewhat unpleasant dating experience

Edited on Sun Nov-07-04 12:09 PM by kingfish_junior

There is a very cool pink-haired riot grrrl at work named Shayla whom I have been trying to date for a long time, and finally, with a fairly noncommittal shrug, she agreed to have dinner with me last night and watch a video at my place.

It was only after I had succeeded in luring Shayla to my place with the promise of a snuggly night watching her videotape copy of her favorite film -- Aimée & Jaguar (she had gotten the tape signed by the director at some event somewhere) -- that I paused to consider the decrepit state of my VCR. It is one of the first VCRs ever made (I was an early adopter) and was very posh and expensive at the time, but by today's standards it is very large, clunky, and a bit unreliable. So, I did a couple of test runs, and everything worked okay. But when I went to do so, I noticed some little mouse turds around my entertainment center. I didn't have time to check it out, but it appeared that there must be some sort of hole behind the TV or something. I cleaned up the turds quickly and got ready to go to dinner.

Dinner went OK -- nothing spectacular -- it was a nice feminist co-op Shayla recommended called "Claire of the Moon: A Womynsoule Meetyngplayce." The pomegranite and pesto pasta with fig roulade was passable, but nothing to write home about. I'm more of a sucker for traditional Italian, rather than this fusion stuff. I did admittedly feel a bit uncomfortable being the only guy there in the place, but it was kind of cool watching a couple of chicks making out at the next table, and everyone seemed to know Shayla, so I got a discount on the check (though she insisted paying for her half).

So, we get back to my place and get ready to watch the video. I turn on the TV, set it to the right channel, and stick in the tape. It sort of sticks going in, and there is this little gear grinding noise but wiggling it around got it in and I hit play, then dimmed the lights and sat down on the couch next to Shayla, who had her arms and legs crossed. (Not sure what the significance of that body language was.) I kind of made sure that when I sat down that our thighs were touching a little bit, just to see what sparks might happen.

The movie comes on and I don't know how to describe this, but apparently the mouse was inside the VCR when I inserted the tape, because in the bottom half corner of the screen, there is this magnified mouse face squished up and stuff the entire time. I had never seen the movie before, so at first I figured it was some sort of David Lynch statement or something, but Shayla recoiled when I went to put my arm around her shoulder about half an hour into the movie, when the girls in the film are making out, so I figured something was wrong. She asked me if this was some kind of joke, and then got up and left, slamming the door and walking off. (Which was quite a statement, given that I had given her a ride to my place and as far as I know the busses had stopped running by that point.) I got up and went to take the tape out, and the back end was just covered with this red goo and fur glop and that was about the point where I figured out what had happened and realized that Shayla's tape was most likely ruined. So, not only was the date a bust, but she's probably going to be telling everyone at work stories about me being gross or something.

I'm kind of not looking forward to going into work tomorrow and seeing Shayla. Does anyone have any advice for breaking the ice on this awkward situation and keeping my embarassment level at a minimum here? We work in a marital abuse crisis hotline.