A Magnet for Weird?

This last weekend was a lot of fun.  My friend Jill’s birthday celebration was on Saturday and I had an absolute blast.  This being said, a whole lot of weird occurred throughout the night and I just cannot help but ask:  “Is it just me?  Or does this not seem normal?”  My mom always used to tease me that if I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.  I'm beginning to think she may have been right...

The night started off really kind of frustrating.  As I was getting ready to go out for the night and putting on my mascara I accidentally blinked and got a huge chunk of the stuff in my eyeball.  I tried to get it out but it just spread around and encapsulated the bottom half of my eye.  I had to run my head under cold water for a couple of minutes for it to stop burning and when I was done the bottom half of the white part of my left eye was beet red.  Could have been worse, but not the best way to start the night off. 

I redid my makeup and headed out the door.  There was traffic from the husky game getting down to Kell’s, we were supposed to meet at 7 and instead, due to lack of parking at Pike Place on a Saturday night, I arrived closer to 7:30.  As per my usual habit, I drove down in my flat shoes and was prepared to change into my boots when I got there.  So I hop in my back seat where my boots were so that I could put them on and then head in to the party.  I finished zipping up my boots and pulled on the handle to open the door.  It won’t open.  I try jiggling the handle a few times when I realize that somehow I must have turned on the child locks.  I don’t even know how to do that!  Now, this wouldn’t have been too big of a deal except my daughter’s carseat was also in the back and sort of blocking my way to get up front.  I had to climb over and halfway into her carseat and over the top of the back seat to get to the front and climb out, all with my boots on.  I finally crawl out of the car and see two people walking up.  “Please don’t have let them see me do that!”  I thought to myself.  Just then one of the people says “Kasey?!”  Ah, crap.  They saw me.  It was Tami and Jeremy walking toward the pub.  Embarassing.  I hurriedly try to fix myself, pull up my pants which were falling down due to my impromptu climb, and adjust my shirt.  We get a good laugh at my “self lock-in”, and head toward the bar. 

Walking toward Kell’s we really had no idea where we were going, but we knew the address ended in "16" So we cut through a building that had the same address.  In the courtyard behind the building there was a huge set of stairs running up to the back of the bar.  I didn’t anticipate such a climb and I was thinking to myself at this point I just should have stayed in my flats.  When we got to the top of the stairs, there was a gate.  On this gate, there was a lock.  A homeless man who heard us coming informs us “Can’t come up this way, they keep this gate locked now.  Sorry about that.”  Damnit!   Can’t a girl catch a break?  Rather than try to go back down the huge wet steps in our heels and go around the block to come back, we opted to try to hop the fence.  So Jeremy goes up and over the fence and Tami and I climb over it one by one, with him helping us down the other side.  Rocky start to my night to say the least.  Finally we arrived to the party and were greeted by our friends.  We chatted a bit, watched the husky game, and celebrated by having a few birthday shots with “Lady J”.  The night was going great.  We decided to draw mustaches on our fingers in support of “Movember” and took pictures posing.  It was a lot of fun.  We decided to move to a place called The Whiskey Bar, and at this point a few more people showed up.  In this group there was a bunch of people I had never met.  One of them was a fireman, and apparently he is into karate.  But that comes into play later. 

After a few minutes in the bar, I went outside for a smoke.  I found a guy that I was able to bum a smoke off of and was standing in front of the bar enjoying my cigarette.  (I had quit smoking a few months ago aside from the occasional bummed cigarette, especially when I’m drinking!).  I had almost finished it when one of the new group members came over to me and asked if he could have a cigarette.  (I don't know his name so we'll just call him Bob.)  “Sorry," I said to Bob, "I don’t have any on me, I had to ask someone for this one.  But you can have the rest if you want?  It’s almost done but there are a couple of drags left”  I said and offered up the remainder of my cigarette to him.  He smiled and thanked me and reached out to grab it from me.  Just then, out of nowhere and fast as lightning, the fireman karate chop kicks the cigarette out of my hand and it flys toward my chest, just as he does this he exclaims “Those cause forest fires!” I frantically started beating my hair and chest trying to make sure that I didn't catch on fire or get burned.  When I saw the cigarette fall down to the ground, I stood there stunned.  “What the HELL just happened!?”  Bob ran over to him and tried to calm him down “Dude, dude calm down, it’s okay.  You should probably go home, I think you’ve had enough to drink!”  He said and ushered the ninja fire assassin away from me.  Fuming, I just couldn’t do anything but sit there.  After taking a few moments to recover, I went over to my group of friends, pointed to the fireman and say “He just KICKED me, like a friggin ninja!  WTF!”  The fireman looks over to me and says “Don’t be dramatic” then over to Bob he whispers very audibly “I don’t like her.”  Haha, obviously, this was not my night.  My friends started to peel out of the bar and we decided to call it an evening.  We quickly hailed a cab and took off toward the Northgate/Shoreline area where we all three live.  I should have known from the start that it was going to be a rocky night!  Maybe I should have just left myself locked in my car.  But then, I wouldn’t have ever gotten to be karate chop kicked by a fireman.  And how many people can say that?!

Chapter 7: The Mama's Boy

Okay, I have to preface this one by saying that I do not go on dates expecting to be picked up, everything paid for, and all the old standards that dating used to have.  On first dates, I always go in anticipating I will pay for myself and if I it ends up that I don’t have to, it’s a nice treat (this is also why I never order anything too extravagant).  I prefer not to be picked up at my place because it just leaves an uncomfortable car ride home if things go bad (and then they know where you live!) Of course it’s nice to have doors opened and chairs pulled out, sure…but these are all extras.  (Hey girls, we fought for feminism right?  Well here you go.)  I do, however, still have standards that I find acceptable on dates as far as behavior and self-sufficiency.  It is for these very reasons that I found myself asking “How did I end up with the loser trifecta on possibly the worst date in history?”  Let me start from the beginning.

My friend Joanne got married in September.  It was about a week before the wedding that I started talking to this guy who wanted to take me out.  However, with the wedding so close and all the things that needed to be done to get ready for it, I just didn’t have the time.  So, I told him he could take me out the weekend after the wedding if he was still interested at that point.  Of course, that was over two weeks away so I thought that the chances of him still being interested at that point may be slim to none.  To my surprise, he continued to text me every day and call me every night for a chat after my daughter had gone to bed.  Our conversations were great, he got my sense of humor and I got his, and we would just go over almost any topic talking for an hour or so every night. 

I found out he had two daughters, which I liked because I’ve often had the issue of people not understanding my availability limitations.  When I had told guys in the past that the only time we can go out is on nights when I don’t have my daughter, they usually didn’t understand.  They would inevitably say some variation of “it’s okay, I like kids!”  Obviously, they were missing the point that it wasn’t about them, it was for my daughters sake that I just don’t bring anyone around.  So the fact that this guy had two girls of his own and understood what it meant to have limited availability was a definite plus.  Also, he was up to speed on Dora the Explorer which is a great thing in my world.

So finally after all this waiting, the day of our date arrived.  He had picked out Pesos for dinner and we had planned to meet there at 7PM before it turned into the meat market on that Friday night that it would later become.  Around 6PM when frantically getting ready trying to make it out the door on time, I got a call from him.  He told me that his car had broken down and that he was going to try to take the bus but he had missed it.  He didn’t think he could be there until 8:30 or 9 and it would be crowded and noisy by that point.  I offered up a solution, I made reservations at Talouse, the sister restaurant to Pesos next door, and offered to swing by and pick him up so he didn’t have to take a half hour bus ride.  See? I have an open mind about dating I swear!

So I drive down to pick him up and he gives me directions.  He told me he rented out the bottom half of this house in Burien, and he told me to pull up to the side of the house and he would come meet me.  So I did.  It was a heavily wooded area and really dark with only a narrow one way road going in and through the neighborhood.  So after I called to let him know I was there he took about 10 minutes to actually come to the car.  It was a little annoying yes, but I just jammed out to my music and played angry birds in my car.  Finally we headed toward the restaurant and got there just in time for the last reservation that they had at 9PM.  We get to our table and things start off really well.  The conversation is flowing, he’s complimenting me, we have a great back-and-forth thing going and I’m just really enjoying my time.  When the waitress comes around to take our orders, I get a glass of merlot and a ceasar salad, and he gets a porterhouse steak meal and an Arnold Palmer.  We get through our meal and are just waiting for the check so we can go karaoke which was his suggestion since he knows I LOVE it which I found to be very sweet.  (Also, he was in a band so I think he wanted to show off a bit).

Just then as the waitress drops off our bill, I spot my friend at the table across from us.  “Ally!”  I said to get her attention, and I waved to her.  She got up from her booth and came over to chat for a minute.  While this is going on, I start to hear murmurs from my date and a few cusses under his breath.  “What’s wrong?”  I asked him, surprised.  He excused himself for a minute and got up and walked outside.  I could see him pacing back and forth around the door and checking the floor in between the door and our booth as he headed back.  He told me that he had lost his debit card.  “Oh…” I said remembering then the expensive meal he had ordered.  He said just to wait a minute while he made a call.  He got on the phone and said “Hey, it’s me, can you go down and see if I left my debit card on the table?  Thanks.”  He got off the phone and explained his dad lived in the neighborhood and was going to go check for him.   “Okay,” I thought, “strange, but I really hope he finds it!”  Not even 2 minutes later he got a call back and from the conversation I gathered quickly that the card had not been found.  I grab the check and insert my debit card, trying very hard not to notice the total, but I could not help it.  I was shocked!  “$60 bucks and all I got was a glass of wine and a salad!” I thought.  I was trying my best to keep my cool. 

Okay, so the guy doesn’t have a car that works, lives in BFE Burien, and either doesn’t have the money to pay for his portion of dinner or really is just too irresponsible to carry a backup credit card or cash.  I try not to read too much into it and just let it go.  So we go to leave and he asks me if we can stop by his place before we went to the second part of the date to look for his card. I’m not sure if this was a ploy or not, but if it meant getting reimbursed for his expensive-ass steak, then sure why not?  I had to drive him home anyway.  Back at his apartment, we pull up to the driveway.  He explained his place is below this house that he rents from landlords, so he says.  But to get down to the actual apartment, you have to take a lift that went down this steep hill to his place.  Now, I have to preface this with saying I have TRUE arachnophobia.  Even just thinking about this next part of the story makes my palms clamy and the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. 

So he tells me to get on this and there are spiders effing EVERYWHERE.  I’m not talking like little tiny spiders, I’m talking deep in the woods HUGE ass spiders that you could see their individual joints and hairs on their bodies.  Most people wouldn’t notice this, but I did.  By the entrance there were at least 15 large arachnids with their webs dangerously close to my head.  But he urges me on and I run and duck practically diving onto the lift.  We’re going through the trees and I could have sworn by the size of these monsters that we were in some jungle somewhere.  So we get off the lift and I quite literally RUN to his door ducking my head and protecting my hair.  Yeah, I know, I’m a big P@$$% when it comes to spiders.  Anyway, we go inside his place which is neat inside, but he looks around and can’t find his debit card.  I just want to leave but the thought of going back through the gauntlet of hell that awaited me outside didn’t bring me much comfort.  He turns around and says, “Well…?” as if he were looking to me as to what to do next. 

On the way he had suggested pool up the road and I thought that the least he could do would be to pay for some pool and get me a drink.  So, I decided to take him up on the offer.  “Well, we could always” and he stopped me and stepped closer to me, “we could always stay here and play pool, I have a mini pool table.”  I laugh a little laugh that was probably more maniacal than cute, “well no, let’s just go to that place you were telling me about.”  He looked disappointed “okay” he said.  So head back out through the lift of death and leave to go to the bar he had mentioned.  On the way he makes me stop at two places to retrace his steps and see if his card fell out.   We play pool for a while and he buys me a drink (turns out he had $30 on him in cash but hadn't offered up that info when the check arrived).  After a couple of games of pool during which I learned that his caveman approach to flirting was making jokes about the way I held my "stick", I feign exhaustion and drop him back off at home.  The night was completely a bust for me.  He on the other hand must not have thought that way.  “Well, do you want to come hang out for a while?”  “Yeah right buddy, I’d rather sever my left foot than go down there again” I think to myself but instead “no thank you” comes out.  He leans in for a kiss and I give him my cheek and a friendly hug/pat on the back.  I take off toward home and try to sleep away this nightmare of a date.  I recapped it for myself.  I had picked him up, paid for dinner, dropped him off and had been nearly accosted by hundreds of spiders.  Worst.  Date.  Ever.   

The next day he called me to ask me if he could take me out again, saying he found his debit card and had left it in the machine for the second time that week.  He said he wanted to make it up to me for the night before.  I was about to decline when he said “and I’d really like to reimburse you for our dinner.”  Now, normally a mere $60 would not be worth repeating the special brand of hell that was my first date with this guy.  BUT the following weekend was my birthday and some friends of mine and I were going to the casino, and I wanted to gamble.  I had budgeted about $60 for my gambling money from my paycheck so you can see why I wanted to get it back.  “Alright” I replied.  We set up a potential date for the day after next, him thanking me one more time for giving him another shot.  We were randomly talking about something from our first date and my Prius comes into the conversation.  “I love the Prius by the way,” He says, “My mother has a blue one just like it”.  That’s great I thought.  However at that moment I realized in horror that outside of his “landlord’s” house there was a blue Prius.  My mind began to spin and I put two and two together, with the Prius out front and how fast his Dad was able to check for his card, they didn’t just live in the neighborhood, they WERE his landlords!  Ugh.  I had gone out with the loser trifecta.  He was a 35 year old man who didn’t have a car, probably had no money to pay for himself, and therefore lived at home with his parents.  I got off of the phone with him and just sat there.  Could I really go out with him just to get my money back knowing that there was no way in hell I would date someone like that?  I wasn’t so sure. 

So our next date night rolled around and he asked me if I could pick him up from work and we could go to dinner and a movie by his house since he didn’t have his car fixed.  I declined and said I’d rather just meet him in Seattle.  We set up a time to meet and I start to head out.  He texted me just then.  “Damn!  I just got on the wrong bus, it’s going to take me an extra hour, can we just meet up in Burien instead?” I shook my head, and decided the money just was NOT worth it.  “I just CANNOT relate to your problems!”  I thought of sending.  But instead I didn’t respond.  I didn’t pick up his phone calls that night and only texted him the next day to tell him I didn’t think it was a good idea if we saw each other anymore.  I  may not be the catch of the century, but I have my stuff together for the most part.  And I could just never date a mama's boy.

Chapter 6: The Wedding Guy

A few months had passed since my last date and I was feeling ready to get back into the idea of meeting someone.  I don’t really like meeting guys at bars for two reasons. Reason #1: the odds of meeting a quality person there are slim at best. Reason 2: it’s really hard to concentrate on what the other person is saying with music blasting, half a beer spilled on their shirt, and the ever zealous mating call of the drunk people in the background.  So, I went for the online dating thing again.  A couple of interesting guys had taken the time to email me and I thought I would take the time to meet each one and see if we had anything in common.  This first guy was very successful in what he did, in fact he was pretty renowned in the area and he sent me many links so I could view his work that had been in local publications.  He seemed intelligent and really proud of his accomplishments and went on and on about his business.  He appeared to enjoy what he did and seemed passionate about it which I found attractive.  I hesitate to say what he did since he’s well known in the community, but we’ll just say his work is related to weddings.   


We’d been talking for about a week when we decided to meet up at a restaurant in Northgate.   We struck up a quick conversation when he asked me “do you want to do me a huge favor?”  I raised an eyebrow… “maybe…what is it?”  He laughed and said, “nothing too major, but I promised one of my ‘brides’ that I would show up at her birthday party at a casino, do you want to be my date?”  I shrugged my shoulders in indifference which he took for a “yes”.  “Great!” He replied.  “You’ll really like them, they’re awesome people, I just LOVE my ‘couples’ ”.  We hadn’t been at the restaurant for more than 15 minutes, but I was starting to notice very effeminate qualities to his voice and mannerisms.  He rolled his eyes and flicked his hands a lot and caught himself talking in a higher pitch and would quickly clear his throat and talk an octave (or two) lower.  But, I am aware that there are some men that are more manly than others and it doesn’t have anything to do with their sexual orientation.  Still, it was in the back of my mind that it may be an issue.  Don’t get me wrong, I love gay men, I just prefer not to date them.   


I tried to dismiss this thought thinking that maybe I was being too judgmental.  At any rate we head down to the casino and we’re getting along pretty well.  When the conversation took a quiet dip, he looked at me and said “Can I ask you a question?”  Again, the eyebrows lift.  “Sure,” I reply.  “Do you get a sort of…gay vibe from me?” He asks.  Startled and then realizing it must not just be me, that other women must have picked up on this too, I replied “No!  Huh uh…Not at all!”  I cringed as I realized that maybe the third “No” was overdoing it and he may have caught on to the fact that I was lying.  He proceeded to tell me that he had three sisters and was home schooled and so he spent a lot of time around women and that’s where he’d picked up the mannerisms.  It sounded like a well-rehearsed speech.  “Possibly,” I thought to myself, “but that doesn’t explain the keen sense of fashion.”  He had on a canary yellow shirt with great buttoned cuffs, a Burberry scarf, and a nice pair of brown suede shoes.  Also, a few minutes earlier he had taken the time to notice the only piece of jewelry worth any value that I currently own, my right hand ring.  It is a very intricate design with many tiny diamonds in three rows that sparkles in the light.  When he saw my ring, he gushed.  “I love it!  It’s a lot like mine!”   He proceeded to hold out his right hand and had a glowing white gold ring with even more sparkle on it than mine had.  Now, I’m not an expert, but I know a ton of guyfriends and just the idea of a plain gold ring when they get married sometimes seems to feminine to them, let alone one adorned with so many tiny diamonds that it resembled the sparkly glow of a disco ball.  “Okay,” I thought, “so this probably isn’t the guy for you, but he’s nice enough so let’s go to the casino, say hi to his friends and hightail it out of there.”   


We walked into the casino and saw the bride’s family and the couple eating at the seafood buffet.  As we approached the table, she recognized him and got up to him for a hug.  “Hi!”  She said, but with a slightly awkward undertone. “How are you?  I haven’t seen you since the wedding!”  They exchanged pleasantries and I gathered from the conversation that he wasn’t exactly “invited” per say to the birthday event.  It was a blanket facebook invite that he had responded to, and he handed her a $10 Starbucks giftcard.  Now, to be fair, I have done this one time as well.  Randomly shown up at someone’s birthday that was just a public post on facebook.  But, that is a whole other story!  Anyway, so he says hi to the family who look quite surprised to see him there, and even more so when he introduces me.  “Hi everyone, good to see you again.  This is my date, Kasey”.  The table went quiet and they all had some variation of the “huh?” face.  I was beginning to feel like I was a beard.  (If you don’t know the term, look it up on the urban dictionary, and don’t worry, it’s not bad. )  So we stand there uncomfortably hanging over their meal and then he says “well, we’ll be around so call me on my cell when you’re done and we’ll meet up.”  And with that, we headed out.   


On the way back I mentioned that I was quite tired, but he said “let me make this up to you, it’s been kind of an odd date and I’d like to buy you a drink.”  “Okay,” I said “Follow me and we’ll go to a little hole in the wall up in Pinehurst”.  I picked this place because I’d been there before and it was a few blocks from my house so that I could be home shortly after this was over.  We hadn’t had anything to drink up until this point, but halfway through his Washington Apple, he pushed his drink my way and said “I’m getting a little tipsy, I’d better stop drinking this or I might make a move on you.”  Okay, I thought, THAT seals it.  I really need to go home.   


We said our goodbyes and I headed to my place. I decided to look at his facebook to see if there were any more clues.  There were many.  Some in the form of pictures posed with his hands on his hips with other half naked men in togas.  Some in the form of posts exclaiming at his excitement of shopping.  (I.E. an actual post: I love Chicago, can you say BLOOMINGDALES!!!)  He sent me a couple of texts and facebook messages after that.  Conveniently I was in a wedding shortly thereafter and just kept making excuses that I was too busy with the upcoming event.  “It’s better this way,” I thought, “I could never keep up with his sense of style.” 

Chapter 5: The Renegade Singer

I met this guy out one night with a friend of mine, his name was Andrew.  We talked a bit and he kept looking over to our table at Ozzies.  I was singing a few songs and we were chatting  We'd been hanging out for half the night and the other half I would catch him looking at me.  So, when my friend's cab arrived to take us home, I went up to his table to say goodbye.  His friends said "You can't leave yet, he finally signed up for a song!"  I made my apologies and said I had to go, but I slipped him my number on a napkin and told him to call me. 

He was tall and had dark hair and light blue eyes.  He invited me out to dinner the following Friday.  On my way to meet him for dinner, he called me three whole times to change the venue.  I wasn't familiar with the area he picked out, and every time I would start getting close to the ending destination on my GPS of the place he picked, he would call me and say “Change of plans”.  When he did this for the third time I said “okay this is the last one you get so make it a good one!”  So finally, he picked a small Italian restaurant with nice décor and low lighting.  It was going well I thought.  I wasn’t sure if he was my type because he didn't seem to be displaying too much evidence of a sense of humor.  I kept dropping my best witty banter throughout the conversation but he didn't catch on.  He was definitely educated and well spoken, so I thought, “hey, why not give this a minute and see what he’s all about.”  

We ordered a couple of drinks, he got a beer and I got a glass of wine and the conversation starts flowing.  We got to talking about things we like to do around Seattle.  I mentioned going to movies, trivia nights, dive bars and of course my number one activity…karaoke.  He stopped and got this very serious look on his face.  “OH yeah, YOU like karaoke!"He exclaimed as his expression changed to far too much joy on his face.  He asked me what I liked to sing and I rattled off a few of my go-to songs: “Well I like Nancy Sinatra ‘These boots are made for walking’, Blondie ‘One way or another’, and of course the crowd pleaser of Four Non Blondes ‘What’s Up’.”  He grinned from ear to ear and began what would be the most excruciating and uncomfortable 4 minutes of a first date in history.  He proudly began singing the last song of the list, “What’s Up.”  He started softly then gained momentum as well as decibels as he continued singing and belted out this song.  At last he ended with the chorus of “And I said Hey, yay yay yea-ah Hey, yay yay.  I said Hey!  What’s going on?”  I looked around the restaurant and saw all the people in the room looking our way.  One man at a table in the dimly lit corner behind us had a fork full of linguini already wrapped and suspended in air approximately 4 inches from his mouth but he was not moving it.  My guess is he was frozen by the ethereal voice of my date.   

When I was sure I could not have sunk any lower in my chair and donning a crazy awkward smile on my face (my eyes were bulging from embarrassment), finally the torture came to an end.  He wrapped up his best female vocalist of the ‘90s impersonation and smiled at his accomplishment, apparently sure I would be very impressed that he knew all the words.  Impressed I was not.  But he must have mistaken my horror for happiness because it was at this time that he informed me of his affinity for Neil Diamond songs.  He then began to sing again doing his best to mimic the pop icon with his own personal rendition of “We’re coming to America!”  I decided then and there to stop moving or even breathing, thinking maybe he was like a T-Rex and if I held perfectly still he would forget I was there and leave.  Alas, this did not work.  I got my phone out of my purse, and feigned concern.  I quickly took the last sip of my glass of wine, made my apologies and said I “Have to run, but it was sooooo nice to meet you!”  I walked - slash - sprinted out of that Italian restaurant and never looked back.  Now that's "What's Up!"

Chapter 4: The Southern Gentlemen

After the holidays were over and Spring rolled around, I realized I hadn’t been on a date in months and I wanted to try the Match thing again.  I went online and met a nice guy a couple of years older than me.  He had a good job and was pretty cute, but most importantly he was hilarious!  His emails and phone calls almost always had me in fits of laughter, and if there’s one thing that I have a hard time resisting it’s a great sense of humor.  So he decided to take me to Jillians (which on a side note quickly became my FAVORITE spot in Seattle).  We play some pool, I kick his ass at Guitar Hero (on expert baby!) and we have a really good time.  I do notice that while his hilarity continued, a new feature of his personality started to show up.  He kept leaning in close to me and asking quietly and very seriously, “so how do you think the date is going so far?  What do you think of me?”  After the first time, it was cute.  After the third or fourth time, it was a tad annoying.  I thought insecurity was a girl thing? 

After a few rounds of pool, we decided to head over to Ozzies as we both really enjoy some karaoke, and I usually have a great time there.  Now, on a side note my friend Leo lives a few blocks away and we have frequented Ozzies many times.  This will come into play later.  So, as the night is progressing it’s going really well.  I learn he’s from Texas and has a lot of that “Southern Gentlemen” thing to him.  He pays for all my drinks opens doors, pulls out chairs, the works.  He tells me he thinks I’m great, that I have beautiful eyes, and he’s been looking for someone just like me, yada yada yada.  “Okay dude,”  I thought to myself, “cool it a little, coming on a tad strong”.  But in my slightly fuzzy redbull and vodka haze (I was on my second one) I decided to let it slide.  About 10 minutes later he informed me that he had to go to the bathroom.  He offered to get me another drink because  he was going to get one on his way back while we waited for our song to be called.  I decline because I know I’ll be driving in a couple of hours and I decided it was a bad idea.  He leaves for the restroom and I sit there by myself.  After a few minutes I think “hmmm, it’s been a while.”  After 20 minutes I was starting to get irritated.  At a half an hour past his exit for the crapper, I decide to go look in the line for drinks to see if he was over there.  I look all around Ozzies and can’t find him, so I head for the door to leave.  He finds me just as I’m about to go outside and says “I’ve been looking all over for you, where have you been?”  “Ummmm at the table?”  I replied.  Weird, but whatever. 

So we sit back down and our songs are called one by one.  At this time I notice he is plastered.  He’s singing a song by the great Johnny Cash and apparently couldn’t read the screen or was speaking in Yugoslavian because only about a third of the words coming out of his mouth made sense.  I didn’t know Cash had renamed his big hit “Folosolumn prissson” Irritated, I texted my friend Leo to see if they were nearby so I could ditch this date.  I get a text back from him almost immediately.  “We’re at Ozzies by the dance floor”.  Really?!  That's great, they're here too!  I was so ecstatic, it appeared my luck was turning around.  I head over to where Leo had said he was, and my date drunkenly follows me along.  The goofy grin from ear to ear on my date's face disappears as we reach the table where my friend is sitting with two pretty girls.  “Hey!”  One of the girls says addressing my date “you’re back?  Are you…on…a date?”  “Umm…who is she and why would she care?” I thought.  After this weird exchange, my date pulls me onto the dance floor and we cut a rug for a few songs but I decide to call it a night.  He walks me to my car and keeps trying to kiss me and ask me if I will be his girlfriend, to both things I declined.  Girlfriend?  I just met this guy two hours ago!  We part ways and I say goodnight, hoping he’ll sleep it off.  “It’s not going so well at this point, but maybe he was nervous” I thought to myself. 

On my drive home he calls me again “hey, where did you go?  You should have told me it was the end of the night?”  What?!?!?!  This guy is nuts, what was he talking about?!  I thought the walk to my car and me saying “goodnight” sort of took care of that?  Not sure what else I could have done aside from hold up a black and white checkered flag to signify the night was over.  What was going on?  I got my explanation the next morning from Leo.  Turns out that while I waited at our table for half an hour, my date had spotted Leo’s friend at the table and chatted her up for a while, flirting heavily and getting her number, the whole time unaware that I was friends with one of the people at the table.   Apparently after about 30 minutes he remembered he was on a date because he told her that he had to find his “buddy” and he’d be back later. Then as he saw me looking for him he acted as if he had been looking for me all along.  He meant to call the other girl and ask her where she went after I said goodbye.  Really?!  Talk about ridiculous.  The next morning he called me and asked me if he could take me out to dinner that Tuesday night.  “You’ve got to be kidding right?”  I asked him.  “Do you remember anything about last night?  You left me at the table for 30 minutes to hit on someone else who happened to be there with one of MY friends.  I think we’re done here.”  I said as I hung up the phone.  Guess he wasn’t such a “Southern Gentlemen” after all. 

Chapter 3: The Surprise Christmas Guest

Late in November, fed up with liars and wanting to find someone to really hang out with, I gave in to the online dating craze.  I signed up for a free membership on Match.com and it was pretty interesting.  I got a ton of emails and I thought “this is great!  I can weed through a bunch of people and try to find someone who has a stable life and a lot in common with me.  This is SURE to work…right?”  Well it didn’t start off too bad, got to talking to a few people and I really enjoyed just chatting and taking time to get to know someone before meeting them in person.  So I started talking to a guy on there who was my age.  He had a degree in Marketing from a good college and seemed pretty together.  We emailed for about a week but couldn’t really find time to meet up that worked for both of us and it kind of fizzled out as quickly as it began.  I thought, “I’ll never have to see him so who cares?  Not a big deal, right?”  Wrong.  


About a month later and it’s Christmas time.  I haven’t really been dating anyone and not really talking to guys either.  I just sort of mellowed out for the holidays.  Here it was Christmas Eve and I was making some Hollandaise sauce on my Mom’s stove waiting for the rest of the family to arrive.  My mom mentions to me that my Uncle is bringing a friend to dinner who recently moved here from out of state and is my age.  Apparently my uncle sold him a car at the Toyota dealership and they struck up a friendship and hung out quite a bit.  Since this guy didn’t know too many people around here, my Uncle invited him to Christmas dinner.  Cool, no big deal, I set an extra place setting.  So as I get back to stirring the sauce, the doorbell rings and my mom answers it.  In walks my uncle with this shorter, very built blonde guy and I can’t put my finger on it but I recognized him from somewhere….hhhmmm……then it HIT me!  It was the guy from Match.  Really?  Of all the homes in the great state of Washington, why did THIS guy have to buy a car from MY uncle, become his friend, and show up for Christmas dinner at my mom’s house?  Did I murder someone in a past life?  


I looked down at the sauce which I had (in my moment of realization) whipped into submission by a frenzy of fast hand rotations while my mind reeled.  “Put the whisk down slowly” I thought to myself.  Crap crap crap!  How was I going to get out of this one?  I just didn’t want my family to know that I had signed up for online dating yet and Christmas Eve at my mom’s house was supposed to be a date free “safe zone”.  I quickly looked at my reflection on the oven door and realized I looked like a maniac, with flour on my face and my hair a mess.  I didn’t exactly dress to impress and anyways it just seemed awkward to me from the get go.  So I quickly excuse myself to the bathroom and I try to clean up.  If he realizes who I am, I want to at least look presentable.  I realize it’s a lost cause and rest all my hope on the chance that he doesn’t recognize me.  


So we get through dinner and the night goes off without too much of a hitch.  I think to myself that I’ve made it through, he has no idea who I am and I can leave it at that.  At that moment Kami (who is about 17 months old at the time) walks straight over to the Christmas Guest and with both arms held straight up toward him she loudly proclaims “Daddy!”  At that moment I realize there is quite the strong resemblance between this guy and my ex.  In embarrassment he kind of looks over at me.  “No no, Kami, this is not daddy…” I say awkwardly and mouth “I’m so sorry” silently as I pull her off of him.  After we opened our white elephant presents and a new pair of Christmas pajamas for Kami, I get her changed and off to bed in my parent’s guest room where we had a crib set up for her.  At this point, my cousins and my brother want to go out for a drink.  I tell them I’ll drive my brother since I didn’t want to drink too much anyways as I had to get up early the next morning with Kamryn for Christmas presents and “Santa” with my parents.  We agree to meet up at a dive down the road. My uncle and his friend decide to join us, which I was okay with until I realized that the Christmas Guest had indeed recognized who I was and spilled the beans on the way to the pub.  “So Kay, you’re on Match.com huh?”  Ugh…I sigh a sigh of defeat and die a little inside of complete embarassment, my secret was out!  “Yep, I am.”  I quietly admit.  I decided that I wasn’t going to let this ruin my night as there was a karaoke stand with my name on it and I really wanted to have a good holiday.  I signed up for some songs and sang them as they came up.  My uncle went home and I ended up driving said Match guy to his apartment before my brother and I returned to my parents’ house.  A short while later, I found out that he already had a girlfriend back home and they were getting engaged.  I thought Match.com was supposed to be a “singles” dating site?  I guess he didn’t get the memo.

Chapter 2: The Business Analyst

About six weeks after the Lumberjack fiasco, I was warily considering dipping my toe into the dating pool once again. I had recovered from the events of the recent past and was beginning to regain my faith in men. So I decide to go out one Saturday night with my friend Shelby. We wanted to go to the Parlor in downtown Bellevue as they have it all: Drinks, Pool and Dancing. It was a fun night, we each grab a drink and start walking over to the dance floor. On the way, we ran into a group of people that we went to high school with. It was some girl’s birthday party, she was fun and kept asking us to dance. Amongst this group were a few guys we didn’t know. And one of them honed in on me.


He introduced himself and told me he had just moved here from Arizona. He mentioned he was a business analyst, he owned his own business, and he had just gotten a 3 bedroom condo in Bellevue. Why this was some of the first information he offered up to me, I’m not sure. Maybe it was to impress me, I don’t know. Either way, we start talking and really hit it off. He was very sweet and kept complimenting me to the point where I was even embarrassed. He came outside with me to have a smoke and asked me if he could take me out sometime. I thought this sounded like a great idea. He told me that he wanted to take me to El Goucho downtown, a fairly reputable place in Belltown that a few of my friends had told me about but I’d never been. He mentioned that his friend’s family owned and ran the place and that he could get us in with no reservations. I told him that sounded nice, but we didn’t have to go someplace so fancy. Still, he insisted. So, the Parlor was starting to get crowded and that group wanted to move up to Bothell to Bert’s Tavern where they knew the bartender (who also happened to be someone we knew from high school). We all hop in our respective cars and head up North. We hang out for most of the evening, but come about 2AM Shelby and I decide to go. We exchanged numbers and I was excited about the potential there. “Well that was a nice surprise for the evening!” I said to Shelby. We both thought he was an ideal guy and it was lucky that we met. So, the very next day he texted me and thus struck up our conversations. We ended up hanging out the next weekend at his step brother's house (which was actually his step-grandmother's house where a few of my of friends used to hang out in high school which was giving me flashbacks!). It was yet another person's birthday and they decided to all go out with a group of people. It was going well...I thought.


We dated for a few more weeks and slowly but surely the “ideal” factor was peeled away like an onion, one layer at a time. The following week he invited me over. "Great!"  I told him, "What's your address?" He said, "you know, you were just here last weekend." I was? "The yellow house in Bothell." My stomach turns as I realize he's referring to his step grandmother's house. I am confused and decided to head over his way to see what's going on. Turns out he didn’t have a three bedroom condo, of which I could have cared less but come on, why lie about it? The bad part was, instead he was living in his step-grandmother’s basement. Yeah… BUT he said it was because he had just moved a few weeks ago from another state and hadn’t gotten settled, he was in the process of getting his own place, blah blah blah. “Okay” I thought, “don’t be shallow. Give him time to get his stuff together, otherwise he seems like a great guy.” So I did.


A couple of more weeks passed with us going out about once a week. The big test of hanging out with my friends and going out comes around and he passes with flying colors apart from a few minor details. Now, one of my biggest pet peeves is a guy being consistently late. I’m not talking 10 or even 20 minutes, I’m talking at least an hour. Every time. Really. I get all dressed up and excited to go out, get my coat on and my purse in hand and sit on the edge of my seat on the couch. Cut to about 90 minutes later and I'm slumped on my couch, arms crossed, tapping my feet against the coffee table in irritation. FINALLY I head out to my car with my mind made up that I'm leaving without him. Just then he pulls up. Okay, so he was over an hour late, but he offered to be the designated driver so I didn’t have to be which was a nice change of pace from said previous relationship (See chapter 1). So we pick up my friend Tami (my partner in crime!) and head over to our friend Leo’s apartment. We all go out for a night of dancing at the Frontier Room in Belltown. My date was fun, personable and sang openly with me in the car which I LOVE! (Yes, I’m a bit of a karaoke freak, holler!) And it doesn’t hurt that he was very VERY easy on the eyes which is never a requirement for me to date someone, but let’s face it…it doesn’t hurt!


So the night goes well, and for the first time since we’d been hanging out he actually bought me a drink. I had paid my own way for everything prior to this night when we were together, which I really REALLY do not mind because I think it’s old fashioned for guys to pay for everything anyways. But this time it was all on him, even drinks for my friend. As the night ends, he hops in the driver's seat of my car and we head out to leave. We get halfway to my place to drop me off. He all of a sudden starts freaking out. He had forgotten his debit card. We were almost back to my place and I told him he should just go pick it up first thing tomorrow. “You don’t understand” he said, “It is my grandmother’s card…” So, he had to go back and get said card. He said she let him borrow it for groceries and stuff and it wasn’t a big deal. Not sure if she would have seen it that way though, if she wouldn’t mind then why was he so worried about getting it back that same night? I asked him why he would need to use hers, and he said it was because he hadn't found a job yet. When I asked him what was up with his business and the whole "business analyst" thing he acted surprised. "I never said that! I used to clean pools in Arizona." Great. He was a liar and worse than that, he couldn't even remember WHAT he had lied about. Fantastic. We pull back up to the bar, he hops in and gets his grandmother's credit card and gets back into the car. A real winner, I was thinking to myself.  Now I understood why we never made it out to El Goucho.


Anyways, cut to about a week later. We previously had plans to hang out but I had gotten really sick and to be honest I had turned a corner on how I felt about this guy (can't imagine why). He came over for a few minutes and said he had a favor to ask. He needed to borrow $100 and he would pay me back tomorrow. He had some long drawn out story that I neither remember nor care about.  It sounded like he was in a real pinch and he swore up and down that he had a check for $100 that he would cash the next day and give to me. Not sure why I did it, maybe it was the fever making me delirious, maybe because he just looked so very sad sitting on my couch and begging me for money, but I agreed. To his credit, he did come back the next day to drop off some money, but he had “accidentally” spent some of it and he asked me “is that okay?” IS THAT OKAY? Is that a question? I’ve been dating this guy for a month and a half and discovered he was not the man he presented. Instead of a business analyst who had a three bedroom condo in Bellevue and owned his own business, he was an unemployed pool boy from Arizona living in his grandmother's basement. He had fraudulently used his Grandmother's card to finance a night on the town, borrowed money from me, and then spent some of the money he was supposed to pay me back with, and he asks “is that okay?!” No. It was not. I gave him an earful and he acted remorseful, but there really was no coming back from all of this. It was apparent that this was not going to work, and it didn’t take being an Analyst to figure it out.