Sometimes You Want To Pat Yourself On the Back

Every once in a great great while, I'll tell a joke that I think is so funny that I will frequently laugh (at myself) and re-tell it to anyone who will listen. It is by far, one of my most underrated gems.

You want to hear it?

Ok, great!

So, there was a point last year when I was scheduling online dates at least once a week, going through men like old socks. It was exhausting. And surprising, considering that one of the very first online dates I ever went on was so horrible, I swore I'd never do it again. This guy was sooooooooooooo soooooooooooo sooooooooo soooooo cheap, it was (and still is) completely unfathomable to me.

He suggested we meet for lunch. He wasn't a good looking guy, but he was smart, and sometimes smart can go far in erasing someone's face. To a degree. Turns out he was more of an aging hipster, wearing a leather bracelet and other accoutrement that you'd better be super hot or super rich or super whatever to be able to pull off and he wasn't pullin' it off. He was wicked bald, perhaps the jewelry was a distraction technique? He also was wearing one of those gas station shirts with some other dude's name on the patch. Oscar?

Anyway, we had a late lunch in a pub, and unfortunately, we had the place to ourselves. I suggested we sit at the bar, but he wanted to sit in a booth. EVEN THOUGH THE LADY WANTED TO SIT AT THE BAR, BUT IT'S YOUR DATE, Oscar, I said. So we're sitting in this creepy booth in the way back of an empty restaurant and there was no escape from his piercing eyeballs and neverending stories. He complained there weren't enough lemons in his coke, then complained that he didn't think it tasted like regular coke but diet coke so she brought him a new one, and so on and so on. I had a bloody mary. A strong one. And chicken salad on toast, I recall. He wiped his face on his hands and ate with his mouth open and the whole thing was bumming me right out the door.

Hours later, the check came, thankfully. But it just sat there.

And sat there.

And sat there.

And everytime I'd grab my purse or look towards the door as in "Can we get the fuck out of here now?" he'd see my agitation yet launch into another story, "When I was nine I went on a field trip with the class to Washington D.C. and it was so funny because then another time..."

Finally I got out my wallet and said, "How are we going to handle this?" Which is chick code for "Pay the check." There are several answers to "How are we going to handle this?"
Some include:

1. I've got it.
2. Put your money away, this is on me.
3. No, I insist. You can get the next one.

He replied with one of the only WRONG answers:

"Well, I guess we both throw a twenty in and split the change."

MY GOOD GOD!

I'm not even worth chicken salad on toast? Jesus, I had really checked out of the date at this point. Sour look on the face and everything. We wait for change.

And we wait.

And we wait.

The waitress finally returns but instead of bringing us two fives, she brought a ten. The look on his face was priceless panic. There was poo in his pants he was shitting them so hard. He actually looked for the waitress again, to get more change, but at this point, she was back up at the bar doing a crossword puzzle. I grabbed my bag. My freedom was worth $5.

Suddenly, he grabs the ten dollar bill. He tells me to hold the other end of it over the table while he holds the other end. So if you can picture this correctly, we each have an end of it, as if it were a wishbone or whatever.

He says, "Ok, close your eyes."

"What?"

"Close your eyes."

Of course, I only close one, because I'm quite sure he's about to abscond with the ten.

"Ok, now make a wish," he says.

Then he starts tugging on the bill.

I open my eyes.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask.

"Oh, I don't know. Listen, um..." and he looks at the bill, he looks at me, he looks at the bill, he looks at me, he looks at the bill. Then at me.

"Go on, you, um...you ....um...you can have it. Take it."

AS IF HE WAS GIVING ME TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.

As if he was giving me ten dollars, actually, but HE WAS ONLY GIVING ME FIVE DOLLARS!

Cheap bastard.

"Thanks. Thanks so much," I said.

Finally, we left. On the corner, I almost said, "Thank you for lunch," when I realized I bought my own fucking lunch. So I said, "They make a good chicken salad over there, don't they?"

Then he said, "So, where do you prefer to receive calls, at home or on your cell?" and I'm thinking, it doesnt much matter, cheap-ass, because I'm screeing your call no matter what.

Then I ran home to email him "Thanks but no thanks." And my email must have crossed his in the mail which said that he thought the date was great and would love to see me again.

Ah, well.

Fast forward 6 more dates. I swore I'd never go on another, but I had gotten back on the awkward horse with a better attitude, and this time I was just meeting men for one drink. If no spark, then Basta! One night I agreed to meet this one guy, let's call him Bill. Bill was an actor, so he was a little hyper, but we understood each other for the most part it seemed. Until we met. Then I didn't understand him so much anymore.

It didn't help that I had gone to happy hour for a few cocktails before the date.

It also didn't help that he didn't drink. What?

He showed up wearing a yellow Lance Armstrong bracelet, and Lord have mercy on the man who makes that mistake. I was all over him like a bum on a baloney sandwich about it: "So, tell me about your bracelet?" And he was like, "Oh, come on, a friend of mine had cancer and then he beat it so..."

"So, now you wear it so you can remind yourself about it? Or better yet, make awkward conversation-stopping conversation about it on a blind date?"

I guess I was a little tipsy. And obnoxious, sure. But I didn't care.

Then I asked, "How's your Coke?" like a dick. Because I was on my second beer, and not that I advocate alcoholism, I simply don't understand complete sobriety. It makes me fuckin' nervous. So he went into some explanation saying that he either was in recovery or wasn't, I guess I wasn't listening. Recovery is understandable. Mormonism is not. But either way, the guy was sober.

"I don't know, I guess I just am high on life,"he said.

GOOD GRIEF DID HE REALLY SAY THAT?

A GUY WITH A RUBBER BRACELET WHO DOESN'T DRINK SAYS TO ME THAT HE'S HIGH ON LIFE?

Then I went in for the kill.

"Well, at least you're not cheap," I said. You wouldn't believe the nightmarish date I had recently..." And I told him the story about Cheap Guy.

He said, "Sounds bad."

I replied, "It was."

Then he goes, "Well, I can top that. I went on a date recently with a woman for 2 hours before I realized she was a racist."

[get ready, here's my joke comin' up, the one that you've been waiting for that inspired the post]

And I said, "Really. Interesting. Did I mention that the cheap guy was a Jew?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAH

OH ANNE, STOP IT! LLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

And I actually patted myself on the back right then and there.

I don't think he laughed.

And I don't care. I didn't care then, I don't care now.

It is hands down,

one of the funniest things,

I've ever said in my life. And I couldn't have done it without Bill, though. After all, he did set me up the play. And I made the slam dunk.

Moral of this story: If you don't want a second date, act like a racist. Oh, and I think I'm really funny.

The End.

HAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh, man. It's still good. And it's got legs. Excellent.

*Sigh*

*pat on back*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA