Second of two parts
Re “My Innocent Date Morphed Into a Frankstein Nightmare”
[img]1988|right|Alan Corlin||no_popup[/img]This was a Saturday night, and by the time the tow truck arrived, it was 1:30. Because of the lateness of the hour and the 80-degree-plus heat, my date and I were hot, exhausted,on edge. The tow truck driver hooked up the Lincoln, and we piled into the front seat of his non-air conditioned truck. Lady X was in the middle as we headed for Santa Monica. Lucky for us the driver had decided to take a shower before work – about two weeks before he went to work on this night. The interior of his truck stank of body odor and raw gas.
I was thinking things may be changing for the better. Lady X was pushing into me so Hard, to distance herself from the driver, that I thought the door would fly open and deposit me on the street. Quickly I was dissuaded when she once again started complaining to the driver about what a lousy evening she was having on our date. Oh, she was on a roll.
Shall We Stink Together?
I did not care what the driver thought about me or my car. To protest, I rolled up my window, the only window in the tow truck that worked. We rode to Santa Monica in the stifling heatk awash in an odiferous cacophony
The car was dropped off in front of the dealer at 2:15, and we walked the 3 blocks to my business. You can imagine my surprise when, in opening the loading door I noticed my motorcycle was in the parking space instead of the work van.
I had forgotten that I had driven the van home the night before.
Could She Adapt?
Lady X was not happy about having to don my helmet and put her arms around me as I drove her on the motorcycle the six miles to my house. I did not have a helmet on but even at 40 miles an hour I could hear her inside my full face helmet complaining about the date.
We arrived at my house at 2:30. I leaped into the work van for the final push to her house. The interior lights of the van had stopped working years earlier.
I paid almost no attention to the noise the passenger seat made when she sat down. The 10-minute ride to her house was uneventful. She must have been running out of gas. The decibel level of her insults dropped perceptibly.
All that changed, however, when she got out of the van in front of her apartment. I had forgotten going to the hardware store on the way home with the Van. I had purchased a tube of black grease.
Because the interior lights of the van were out and it was “O dark thirty” when we got in, I knew what that noise was when she squished down on the passenger seat.
She was wearing white culottes, befitting the hot weather. She, too, noticed something was amiss when she tried to exit the van.
Ever Smelled a Skunk?
Lady X had seated herself directly on the now half-empty tube of grease. Just before she slammed the door, I saw her back from head to toe. She looked like a photo negative of a skunk. White with a black stripe.
Now it was 3 a.m., and I was ready to leave, vowing to give up dating for
good. Not content to just leave me with so much as a “thank you,” Lady X stood on the grass between the sidewalk and the street and yelled at me for two minutes at the top of her voice, “I will never go out with you again. I had a terrible time.”
There was more. Frankly, though, I do not remember. She yelled at me right up until the sprinklers turned on and soaked her to the skin.
Four years later I was at a party. A woman I never had seen was relating the story of one of her girlfriends’ worst dates.
Slowly I turned to walk away from the group.
Suddenly, sickeningly, I realized the date she was talking about was mine!
Mr. Corlin, two-term former City Councilman and former mayor of Culver City, may be contacted at ad741@lafn.org
