The Other Funny Story

Well, as I've got some time here before I head out, I thought I'd tell the other funny date story I had. Of course, the first story entailed a gal pretending that she was figure skating for over two hours right after she saw her favorite ice skater do his routine. I don't think any date will ever be able to top that one in how odd, awkward, and uncomfortable it was. But, if I were to rank a series of dates with one person as the most odd and awkward that I've had, then this upcoming story would be that.

Just a couple years ago, a good friend of mine met this gal at work and she immediately thought that she and I would click. As soon as my friend got home, she told me all about her. She was kind, generous, educated, attractive, etc. I hadn't heard my friend so excited about setting me up before, so the feeling was contagious. This gal, we'll call her Jackie, and I talked one evening and she seemed very personable at first, very social, not uncomfortable at all, and she even asked me to meet up with her that night at this place she was babysitting at. I wasn't sure how comfortable I was with that, but thought, what the heck, it's better to meet sooner than later. When I arrived there, the lady whom she was babysitting for had arrived. So, there I was, at a place with this gal Jackie, two kids and the kids' mother, none of whom I had met before. Awkward? Yeah, usually, but I was up to the challenge that evening. Right from the get go, I thought Jackie was very attractive, but that social person I had talked to on the telephone never showed up. She was sitting on this couch and a child two seats over, so I plopped down right between them to chat. Right when I did that, she got up and sat on the floor. The kid popped a movie in the VCR, "Tuxedo" starring Jackie Chan. Jackie told me, "If I had kids, I'd never let them watch this. It's only PG-13, but still, there are violent scenes, a couple swear words, etc." Right then and there, I started to wonder about her. That was the only thing she said to me all night outside of an indirect unintended insult, which I'll get to in a second. The kids, the mother, and I talked and joked around, having a good old time. Jackie was just sitting there, mute, looking a TAD uncomfortable. The only time she spoke up was when she just up and asked me, "Do you sing?" I jokingly said, "Well, at karaokes, in the car when no one's in there, or in the shower sometimes, why?" She commented, "Oh, I was just wondering. You have a nice voice, so I thought maybe you'd have a nice singing voice." I then went from there and said, "Well, a friend of mine keeps telling me I should go into radio, but I don't know. I hear my voice a lot different from everyone else, so I have no idea if my voice is really cut out for the radio or anything like that." She then went from there, "Well, there was this one time that a guy in radio came to my school and gave a lecture. We all thought his voice was really hot on the radio, but then after we saw him, we couldn't listen to him on the radio anymore. He was just so ugly." I then jokingly remarked, "What, are you trying to tell me something?" The mother and I both laughed, but Jackie just sat there and said with a serious look on her face, "No." After that night, I thought to myself, well, maybe she's just shy when first meeting someone, so I thought I'd give her another chance.

She called me the very next day and asked me to church. I declined on that, but said she was welcome to call me after the service. She did so and invited me out with her two ex-Mormon friends. I've known a couple Mormons in my day, but partying Mormons, not the types who would seriously sit down and talk to you about their religion. So, I was interested in their experiences, since I was never brought up Mormon. They were married and sat next to one another, which meant that Jackie sat right next to me. Her two friends chatted with me during our stay there and I can't remember Jackie saying one word. She was hunched over, edging away from me, not giving me any eye contact. The fact that she seemed so uncomfortable, it made me a bit uncomfortable. We all said our goodbyes and I guess her friends tried talking to her, because they, like any sane person, could tell that something was wrong.

She called the next night and let it all out. I pretty much heard her life story, from family to friends to religion to politics to jobs to education to missions to odd theories of her's, pretty much everything. Let me mention some of those odd theories. She asked me if it was possible that a male and female be friends and that's it. When I said yes, she didn't believe it. After I told her I had won some money gambling not long before (and quite a bit of money at that), she fell silent and told me I needed help. Let it be known for the record that I won all the money off of $10, the amount of money it'd take to buy a CD or DVD on sale. She said I could never come over, especially by myself. I asked her why and her reasoning for this was, "Well, you know. You're a guy. I'm a girl. If we got together over here, things would probably happen, you know?" I then asked, "What, we couldn't just hang out, eat, drink, play games, cards, watch shows or movies, talk?" She basically said that it wasn't possible. I mentioned how I had drank two alcoholic beverages in the past four months (that's one drink per two months) and she suggested I go to AA and she'd even attend the meetings with me. Yet, she then carried on about how the only way to defeat these "problems" was to abstain from temptation. She told me how she had seen an R-rated movie once with vulgarity and the next morning, she was up and cursing every other word. Now, that's pretty weak. I have seen my fair share of R-rated films and I don't swear very often. Just because I hear the word eucalyptus in a movie doesn't mean I'm going to be saying it all day, because...ooooh, I heard it in an R-rated film. Then she told me, "Now, there are sometimes that I just want to run into the store and buy all the liquor in the liquor isle, but do I do that? No. I just don't go in there at all." Wow, now who's got the problem? I have a drink every other month (at this point in time) and she wants to buy out a whole liquor store? Then, it became lecture session for me. She lectured me on my friend who's gay, on the arts and entertainment that I'm into, on religion. I always tried to make deep conversation out of it, so it became more than her just relaying messages on to me that she saw in a video at church. But, ehh, let's just say thought-provoking questions and deep conversation is not in the cards for this girl. She then brought up fate and destiny and how one day she needed a dollar and found a dollar worth of change between the cushions in her couch and THAT right there was God putting that money in her couch. I then said, "Don't you think that over the years, change may have fallen out of you or your friends' pockets that were sitting on those cushions? It's not like the money just magically decided to show up, or did it? ::checks my cushions:: Ehh, no money in there. You know why? Because I don't carry change in my pockets! She also confessed to me that she collects mannequins. I always got an eery visual in my head of all these freaky mannequins at her place and immediately the music from "Psycho" would chime in (the shower scene). Jackie told the worst stories too. She told stories about buttercream muffins she made and was laughing the entire time she was telling me this story. I kept waiting for the punchline or for me to wake up from the nightmare and neither occurred. During the story, she was telling me how her friends and she laughed "hilariously." That's right, they didn't laugh hysterically. They laughed hilariously! I was trying to envision that, but I still have not observed a person laughing in this fashion. She was an interesting character, indeed.

But, that wasn't all. I kind of went by the three strikes and you're out rule with her. She asked me to a party and I accepted. One side of me wanted to say, there has to be something sane about this girl somewhere. I'll find it. The other half of me just wanted to see what kind of parties she went to. I felt a cult gathering coming on. I went and there I was, not in unfamiliar territory when it comes to hanging out with her. There were ten to fifteen people there, outside the two of us, whom I had never met before. I came to find out that she hadn't met any of them either, which made things even more awkward. But, as had been the case the previous two outings, I got along with everyone there and as had been the case the previous two times out, she hardly said a word to me. That's always nice. Someone invites you out, acts all excited, and then when you show up, it's like you're not there. But, I made the most of it. I had already concluded that this girl was a little bit on the loony side, so I just spent my time making wise cracks and conversing with everyone else. There was one point in the evening where the host of the party asked how Jackie and I met and I'll never forget the look Jackie gave me. It was the look of, "If you tell, I will come after you." So, I just made up this story about us meeting at Mardi Gras. Most everyone in the room liked the fictional story, except for Jackie of course. That was one of the few times she and I were in the same room. For the majority of the evening, she was in the opposite spectrum of the house with this gal she just met and they were playing cops'n'robbers with their cell phones. That was quite a spectacle. Toward the end of the night, it finally happened. No, not a tantrum. No, not a kiss (gag me). She made physical contact with me for the first time in three get togethers. I felt my right shoe tapped and she said she was going to take off. At that point in time, I was playing a game with the rest of the people and she had only said a couple words to me all night, so I decided to stick around and finish the game. When I left, I laughed and thought, well, that's it. Three times out. During those times, I met approximately 20 people whom I got along with, but she said maybe a total of 21 words to me during those three whatever you want to call thems. Yet, the very next day, she calls me all excited, saying how much fun she had the previous night (what, playing with her cell phone or tapping my shoe?), how impressed she was with my getting along with everyone and staying after she left, and how we should do that again sometime. She did ask me to a party not too long after that, but I declined and after that, I stopped calling her all together and she slowly did likewise.

But, I have heard and read some interesting things regarding this individual since we stopped talking. You see, when she and I hung out, she dressed like someone you'd envision being in "The Little House on the Prairie." Her clothes almost looked custom-made, from the 1800s, covering up everything she had and thensome. All I could see of her was her face, her shoes, and then a bunch of clothes in between. It was an odd sight. But, the friend of mine, who hooked Jackie and I up, saw her at an Awards Ceremony and said Jackie wore the showiest outfit there. When I heard this, I couldn't believe it, because, I mean, when I visualized Jackie, I saw a girl from "The Little House on the Prairie." But, come to realize, she has alternate personalities. I even found out that she was up for Miss Nebraska 2004. She didn't win, but she was one of the 21 final contestants up for Miss Nebraska last year. I looked at that and had to laugh. Yeah, she was good looking, but after I started getting to know her, she looked more crazy than good. I can just imagine if she was in the Miss America Pageant and the speaker came around asking them all, "If there was one thing you'd want, what would that one thing be?" They'd all say, "World peace," until they got to Jackie and she might come out and say, "I want every liquor isle that this country has to offer and every single mannequin that money can buy! Give it all to me! I want it now!" The "Psycho" music definitely rings in this time and I envision "Carrie" at the end of the movie, so people may want to get the heck out of there!