My Worst First Date, Starring Me in a Cringe-Worthy Role

I've been on a lot of horrible first dates. On two different occasions, the vehicle was wrecked because the driver was paying more attention to my fishnet-clad legs than he was to the road. Once, a guy took me back to his apartment. The coffee table alone was littered with dirty socks and the remains of a steak becoming one with the congealed steak sauce on a paper plate. He then proceeded to tell me that he has been convicted on drug charges and that he had expected the evening to end with "hot, passionate sex." Of course, it did not. But the worst date I ever went on had (mostly) only me to blame.

I was 19 and the hostess at one of the finer eating establishments in my town. A friend of one of the waitresses asked about me and she set us up. I should have known I was in for trouble when the gentleman told me he was "enticed" by my beauty. I was 19, but emotionally I was about 13, and he was 27.

When "Neil" came to the door I told him my brothers had a question for him. My 17 year old brother (who was also still in elementary school emotionally) said "Do you think my sister's beautiful?" Neil seemed taken aback and said "Well, yes...I find her attractive." "What are you...nuts?" My brother and I proceeded to crack up leaving poor Neil time to reconsider his decision. Apparently not enough time because he still took me to dinner.

The last time a man had paid for my meal he bought me Taco Bell so I was starry eyed at the prospect of someone else paying for my dinner. I proceeded to order like someone in an eating contest, only instead of 40 hot dogs I ordered an appetizer (potato skins), a soup course (cream of broccoli), an entree (chicken sandwich with fries) and dessert (chocolate cake.) After watching this 120 lb girl pack away a dinner fit for a lumberjack and listening to me yammer on about my ex-boyfriend Neil somehow remained optimistic about the evening and suggested we go to a movie.

Neil wanted to watch Space Jam, I was interested in The English Patient. I won. It was my third mistake of the evening. Sitting in the dark with a virtual stranger watching other virtual strangers have steamy relations in the desert does not make me very comfortable and I tried to stare straight ahead and not give him any ideas.

Naively I agreed to go back to his apartment. Neil was a perfect gentlemen. He introduced me to his snakes who all had Russian names and broadly hinted that some people would think that since he paid for my dinner I "owed him something." I played dumb and innocently disagreed with that assessment. There was nothing left to do but take me home.

We made polite conversation in the car and I tried to ignore the fact that the greasy potatoes, the strong broccoli, and the lactose- rich dairy I consumed at dinner all seemed to be fighting in my stomach. When I consider the events that followed I try to determine what could have been done to avoid the catastrophe. Eating less at dinner seems to be a likely answer. Asking him to stop the car and feigning sick is another. But I did neither of those things. Feeling helpless to fight the gastrointestinal emergency that seemed forthcoming, I did what any normal person would do under the circumstances.

I farted and pretended not to notice.

Not once.

Not twice.

The rest of the car ride involved me emitting silent but deadly odors. If this event was immortalized in a comic strip there would be clouds of green cartoon gas to represent what was leaking out of my orifice. I had never been taught to "hold it in." I never knew it was possible. In my family a person could fart loudly and with great stench and no one would say a word. It was probably a form of self defense, since every last one of us seems to be lactose intolerant and a victim of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. To roll down the window would be an acknowledgment that there was a noxious stench, and neither of us were that rude, so we sat and suffered in silence as the car became a gas chamber.

At the first sight of my house I leaped out of the car and slammed the door. At least one good thing came about because of the explosion. There was no awkward moment where we tried to decide if a good night kiss was forthcoming. I never wondered once if he was going to call me and ask me out again and of course, he didn't.

Which is fine with me, because I'm not sure I wanted to be the mommy to a Russian snake.