my soul mate would surely slip through my fingers and tie the knot with a less ambivalent woman who’d had the good sense to sign up immediately, no questions asked. At the same time, Bunny implied that there were so many extraordinary men overflowing the books and videos of Single No More that I could be busy dating all of them until the end of time.
Against my better judgment, but having no choice since it was the only video dating service in Milwaukee, I mustered the minimal amount of enthusiasm necessary to convince Bunny that I wanted to sign on the dotted line and discovered that the “special price” was two thousand dollars for six months, which sounded suspiciously like the special price for everyone all of the time. I filled out the forms, claiming to have been self-employed as a freelance writer since grad school. Next came my Single No More video debut: directed by Bunny Woods, produced by Bunny Woods, and written by Bunny Woods.
First, she forced me to primp in the bathroom, and sent me back in twice to “fix my face,” which as far as I could see looked fine, but then, I’d only been looking at it for forty-one years so what did I know? We practiced, doing so many takes that I lost count, until she insisted on writing out an actual script. I’m fairly certain the filming of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments had taken less time to make than my Single No More video.
“You won’t be disappointed. See you on Friday,” said Bunny, giving me a wave, which I returned halfheartedly, like a flag signaling distress. In three days, after my background check had cleared, I could finally be initiated and allowed entry into the vault and the video room. I could hardly wait.
Four
Date Rescue
Is dating getting you down? Are the personals profiles you’re responding to more fiction than fact? Have your recent rendezvous been more ordeals than orgasmic? Then contact Date Rescue! The next time you find yourself on a horrendous date just dial our toll-free number. Date Rescue will respond within minutes to your location—strip mall restaurants, budget movie cinemas, NASCAR events—wherever you may be. Our crack team of rescuers made up of former Armani models and Chippendale dancers is trained in CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. They will whisk you away and take you to our nearest safe house where you will be revived with a pep talk assuring you that Mr. Right is right around the corner.
Within a second of seeing Trevor, Bachelor #1, “Mr. Hopeless Romantic” from MilwaukeeDates.com, I knew that the hopeful flutter I’d felt just before I’d entered the bar where we were meeting would soon become a distant memory, like the after-effects of a migraine headache or a bout of botulism. In Trevor’s e-mail to me, he’d said that he’d be wearing a blue shirt, and although there were three men with blue shirts, I knew him in an instant. He was the one in the bowling shirt with ivory-colored buttons shaped like bowling pins and the name Trevor embroidered in big white letters above his breast pocket.
I forced myself to approach him. Trevor had either sent a stand-in for our date or had mysteriously shrunk four to five inches and his weight had ballooned fifty pounds or so. His skin had the flaccid, doughy consistency of someone who has spent their entire life in a dark windowless room, only allowed out on holidays and special occasions.
I followed him to the suburban strip mall restaurant. When we were seated Trevor launched into a conversation about his job as a computer technician, relating in excruciating detail last year’s near “thermo-nuclear meltdown” in accounting because doddering old Mrs. Phillips hadn’t de-fragmented her computer in nine months.
“Can you believe she’d never even heard of de-fragmentation?” he asked, sitting across from me in a corner booth at a chain seafood restaurant.
“Shocking,” I mumbled.
Next our conversation had moved into the area of
Against my better judgment, but having no choice since it was the only video dating service in Milwaukee, I mustered the minimal amount of enthusiasm necessary to convince Bunny that I wanted to sign on the dotted line and discovered that the “special price” was two thousand dollars for six months, which sounded suspiciously like the special price for everyone all of the time. I filled out the forms, claiming to have been self-employed as a freelance writer since grad school. Next came my Single No More video debut: directed by Bunny Woods, produced by Bunny Woods, and written by Bunny Woods.
First, she forced me to primp in the bathroom, and sent me back in twice to “fix my face,” which as far as I could see looked fine, but then, I’d only been looking at it for forty-one years so what did I know? We practiced, doing so many takes that I lost count, until she insisted on writing out an actual script. I’m fairly certain the filming of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments had taken less time to make than my Single No More video.
“You won’t be disappointed. See you on Friday,” said Bunny, giving me a wave, which I returned halfheartedly, like a flag signaling distress. In three days, after my background check had cleared, I could finally be initiated and allowed entry into the vault and the video room. I could hardly wait.
Four
Date Rescue
Is dating getting you down? Are the personals profiles you’re responding to more fiction than fact? Have your recent rendezvous been more ordeals than orgasmic? Then contact Date Rescue! The next time you find yourself on a horrendous date just dial our toll-free number. Date Rescue will respond within minutes to your location—strip mall restaurants, budget movie cinemas, NASCAR events—wherever you may be. Our crack team of rescuers made up of former Armani models and Chippendale dancers is trained in CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. They will whisk you away and take you to our nearest safe house where you will be revived with a pep talk assuring you that Mr. Right is right around the corner.
Within a second of seeing Trevor, Bachelor #1, “Mr. Hopeless Romantic” from MilwaukeeDates.com, I knew that the hopeful flutter I’d felt just before I’d entered the bar where we were meeting would soon become a distant memory, like the after-effects of a migraine headache or a bout of botulism. In Trevor’s e-mail to me, he’d said that he’d be wearing a blue shirt, and although there were three men with blue shirts, I knew him in an instant. He was the one in the bowling shirt with ivory-colored buttons shaped like bowling pins and the name Trevor embroidered in big white letters above his breast pocket.
I forced myself to approach him. Trevor had either sent a stand-in for our date or had mysteriously shrunk four to five inches and his weight had ballooned fifty pounds or so. His skin had the flaccid, doughy consistency of someone who has spent their entire life in a dark windowless room, only allowed out on holidays and special occasions.
I followed him to the suburban strip mall restaurant. When we were seated Trevor launched into a conversation about his job as a computer technician, relating in excruciating detail last year’s near “thermo-nuclear meltdown” in accounting because doddering old Mrs. Phillips hadn’t de-fragmented her computer in nine months.
“Can you believe she’d never even heard of de-fragmentation?” he asked, sitting across from me in a corner booth at a chain seafood restaurant.
“Shocking,” I mumbled.
Next our conversation had moved into the area of
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