LJ Idol, Week 15
This was the worst possible venue for a first date. Who picked this place, anyways? She couldn’t remember now. He probably did. To her, he looked like the restaurant’s target audience. His vintage-styled t-shirt advertising a soda brand that hadn’t been made in a decade would fit right in with the décor here just as much as the surfboard or the framed KISS poster that were mounted on the wall next to their booth.
“…and so I was trying to figure out why the radio wasn’t working, right?” She had no idea what he was talking about now. She hoped that it wasn’t about his car, because there was little that frustrated her more than cars. She owned a car, and it was one of the main sources of turmoil in her life, with the cost of upkeep and all.
Elsewhere, she could hear one of the servers talking to the booth behind theirs. A customer was complaining about their steak being overcooked and the server was doing their best to figure out what they could do to resolve the situation. She laughed to herself - she actually almost laughed out loud - relieved that she didn’t get a steak. Who gets a steak from a place like this, she thought? This, while noting the weird plastic hamburger with a smiley face that was mounted on another wall in the restaurant.
“Anyways,” he said, drawing some soda from his glass through the straw, “what did you think about that?”
Think about what? She had absolutely no idea what he was asking her about, nor did she have any idea what he had been yammering about.
“You know what? I can’t even think about that right now,” she said. “I’m just too hungry.” She hoped that her diversionary tactic didn’t come off as rude as she suspected it might have.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “It makes me wish I had more for breakfast than a…”
He was talking again. About breakfast of all things. She tuned him out as she began to suspect that he was probably breaking down his weekly breakfast schedule for her. Breakfast? Who the hell eats breakfast anymore anyways? Not her, that was for sure. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She did have some gummy worms on the way to work this morning, but only because she found the bag in her car.
“…I won’t even get the pork ones anymore. They give me heartburn or something. Maybe it was the red peppers though, I’m not entirely sure…”
She began to wonder if she remembered to set the cable box to record tonight’s episode of America’s Next Top Bike Courier. This got her to thinking about last week’s episode when Jay was voted out of the competition after taking a wrong turn and getting lost in Chinatown. That was a real shame as she really liked Jay. He seemed to be a pretty nice guy. The kind of guy you could sit down and have a beer with or go out to dinner with.
Oh, right, she was out to dinner now with a guy.
“…but I kept telling him that we can’t go there for lunch anymore if he’s just going to keep getting the same sandwich. Sure, maybe he’s okay with it, but I’m sick of watching him eat it day in and day out…”
At least he was talking about lunch now. Maybe by the time their meals came, maybe he’d be talking about dessert.
What had she even ordered? Some sort of pasta, maybe. It had chicken in it, she knew that much. It was one of those decisions she made in a split second. She had been flipping through the pages, unable to find anything that she was really in the mood for when their server came to take their order. He ordered right away, not even pausing to see if she needed more time to look at the menu.
Really it didn’t make much of a difference. Given 10 more hours, she probably still wouldn’t know what she wanted. Also, that creepy plastic smiling hamburger was staring at her and it was distracting. Hell, everything was distracting tonight.
She had just pointed at the first thing she saw at that moment. Pasta of some sort…with chicken in it. Now she was hoping that she liked it.
“…that’s pretty much the point, you know?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding her head. She had no idea what she was agreeing to.
“Exactly. I’m glad somebody gets it,” he said with a look of satisfaction.
“You know what I hate?” she asked, not fully aware that she was actually thinking out loud.
“What’s that?” he replied.
“That damn hamburger,” she said, pointing at it.
He turned to look at it, then nodded, then turned back to her.
“Yeah, that thing is pretty fucking creepy. Is that what’s got you so pre-occupied tonight?”
“Pre-occupied?” she asked, acting offended and almost astonished that he’d make such an accusation.
“Please,” he said with a slight smile, “there’s no way that you’ve been paying attention to me tonight.”
“How can you be so sure?” she said.
“Because,” he said, this time actually laughing out loud, “I’ve been making up stuff for the past 20 minutes, just to see if you were paying attention. I talked about sticking butter in my ears…I got no reaction. I mentioned that a hobby of mine was playing a xylophone that I made out of finger nail clippings I’ve collected over the years. You actually nodded and smiled to that. I talked about mailing gophers to the president. You didn’t react at all.”
She sat there for a moment, unsure of what to say. It was true, she certainly didn’t remember any of that. She would have probably remembered hearing about a xylophone made of collected finger nail clippings.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What’s got you so distracted tonight? Besides the weird grinning hamburger.”
“I think it started with your t-shirt,” she said.
He looked down at his shirt and paused for a moment to think about it. Then he nodded.
“Yeah, this is a pretty stupid shirt, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding.
“I’d take it off, but I don’t think the management would care much for that.”
“No,” she said laughing. “Probably not.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s start over. Ignoring my t-shirt…if you can, let’s talk about something. Do you like…” He seemed to be thinking this over. “TV shows? I’ve been watching this show about bike couriers.”
She suddenly didn’t care about whatever it was that she ordered for dinner. She suddenly no longer cared about the weird smiling hamburger. This might just be a pretty good first date after all.