the Table61 blog

“You’re not wearing that are you?”

“It’s my good luck charm.” Well, it was supposed to be.

Stewart was referring to the little black dress, size 2.

Jessie had been good friends with Stewart in high school, but they had lost touch when she left for college. She had recognized him at the bookstore. He was carrying a hiking magazine.

“You like the outdoors?”

“Ya, I love hiking and rock climbing. In fact, if I was taking a girl on a date, that’s what I’d do with her. So much better than dinner and a movie.”

“That sounds like fun. You’re right, something different would be nice for a change.”

Stewart glanced down at the book Jessie was carrying; “Advanced Techniques of Kama Sutra.”

“Oh my god, no, this isn’t mine. It’s my sister’s. I’m holding it for her until she gets out of the restroom.” Jessie was blushing, scared he didn’t believe her. “I haven’t even had sex in like a year.” Jessie paused again, embarrassed at what she’d just said.

“So you’re single? How would you like to join me for a hike this weekend?” Jessie accepted, and her sister walked over to them, taking her book. She looked at Stewart, smiling.

“Who’s your friend?”

“My date for this weekend.”

“Damn. I hoped I’d get a chance to try this soon,” she said while thumbing through the book. While Jessie was embarrassed by her sister’s promiscuous behavior, at least Stewart should believe the book wasn’t hers.

On Saturday, Jessie had decided she wanted to drive, having had a few bad experiences recently.

“Well, I’d let you, but we need my truck to get to the hiking trail. I really think you should change out of your dress, or at least take a jacket.” Jessie refused. Stewart gave up; at least she had on suitable shoes.

Stewart picked an easy three mile trail. He had really wanted to do Trail 7, but that involved a bit of rock climbing, and he was sure Jessie wouldn’t want to do that in her dress. They set off, and Jessie seemed to easily keep up. About halfway through he stopped them near a small stream and took off his back pack.

“I should have clarified; I don’t think the whole dinner for a date thing is lame; just when its in a restaurant.” He pulled out a small picnic set and some food. Jessie was incredibly impressed. This was about the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her. He had even brought a small bottle of wine. They sat on the ground and ate. Jessie was so glad her little black dress was starting to bring her luck, even though it was getting a little dirty.

“So it sounds like you haven’t had a boyfriend in a while. Bad luck with guys?”

“Ya, I seem to pick some real losers. I’ve gone on a few dates, but they’ve been disasters. I don’t even want to talk about it. How about you?”

“Well, a few weeks ago my girlfriend broke up with me. I should have seen it coming. She’s been with a lot of guys in the last year. I just thought I’d be different. She was with The Next Guy within two days.”

“Ouch, that sucks. Especially since you seem to be such a nice guy.”

Stewart smiled at her, and then laid back and stared at the sky.

“Uh oh… I forgot to check the weather for today. It looks like it may rain soon.”

Jessie offered to help, “Well, I can check it on my phone.”

“Not likely. You can’t get cell reception out here. Got to head about five miles back up the road. We’re pretty much completely alone. In fact, I’ve only seen one other person out here ever. We’d probably get moving so we don’t get stuck in this rain.”

They packed up and continued on their hike, talking the whole way. “I hope you liked the wine. I didn’t even think to ask whether you drank alcohol.”

“Ya, I’m a social drinker. I don’t really get drunk that often though.”

“Oh, that’s about every night for me. I pass out a lot, and wake up in bed with girls I don’t know. Luckily, Gabe taught me a great trick. I ask them what their middle name is, and then say ‘Well from now on I’m gonna call you that.’ It saves a lot of embarrassment.”

Jessie was a little shocked that he’d share this, but decided to play along. “Megan.”

“What?”

“Megan. That’s my middle name. Now you have no excuse to forget my name.”

“No, I guess I’ll have to be careful. But that’s my ex-girlfriends name, so at least I won’t get in trouble if I mistake you.”

“Well, then how about we just ban you from ever calling me by my middle name.”

“Sounds fair.” Damn. He realized that he should have just kept his mouth shut.

It started sprinkling when they were about fifty feet from the truck. “Wow, we got here just in….” He stopped talking, hands digging through his pocket. “Umm… I must have dropped my keys when I pulled my knife out to open the wine. I’ll run back there real fast. Well, maybe not real fast. Three miles should take me about twenty five minutes. Do you just want to wait here? I should be faster without you.”

“Alone in the woods? I think I’d rather do another three miles.”

Within minutes, it had started pouring. Jessie was immediately soaked and cold. Luckily Stewart was able to put her phone in his pack to keep it dry. It was pretty useless out here anyway.

They returned to the picnic spot without any further conversation. The first words out of Stewart’s mouth were “oh no.”

“What?”

“Do you remember where we sat.”

“Ya, right along the stream around….” She stopped, noticing the problem. The small stream was no longer small. The place they had been sitting was now covered in fast flowing water. The keys were gone.

They walked back to the truck. Stewart opened the door and started putting his pack inside.

“Wait a second, the doors were unlocked. Why didn’t you tell me that. I could have been here warm and dry. Instead, I have nipples about to poke holes in my dress.”

Stewart smiled, even though she was yelling. “Ya, I noticed. Sorry about that.” She got in the truck and dug through his pack to get her phone, but he was right, no bars. She screamed again. Stewart climbed in the truck and suggested that he could walk up the road until he got signal and call someone to pick them up. An hour later, he returned.

“Ok, we should have a ride soon. My buddy Mitch is going to come pick us up, and I’ll just have to find my spare key at home tonight.”

Mitch arrived soon, and Jessie was glad to climb into a warm truck, although now she had two guys staring at her frigid chest. She was debating whether she was going to give Stewart another chance.

Mitch started teasing. “Why is it that on your date I have to pick you up in my truck. Doesn’t seem very manly.”

“Oh, stop your bitching. I tell you what, I’ll be a gentleman and pay you back. We can have Jessie hook you up with her sister. She’s even hotter and seems pretty kinky.”

“Sounds good to me.” As Mitch laughed, Stewart realized what he’d just said. He looked at Jessie.

“Don’t get me wrong, your pretty too. I just happened to ask you out before I met your sister.”

“Dude, not smooth,” Mitch warned his buddy.

Jessie made up her decision. There wouldn’t be a second date.

Jessie walked into her house, alone. Her sister looked at her and could tell things had gone poorly. “Get stuck in the rain?”

Jessie felt like being a wise-ass. “Actually, no, we were inside for all of that storm. We got kind of intimate and he poured a bottle of champagne over me.”

Her sister’s eyes lit up. “Really? That’s like rap video stuff. That’s awesome. Good thing you wore that dress huh. I told you it was good luck.”

Jessie continued on the way to her room, muttering to herself, “No, good luck would have been if I had been the one in the restroom.”

“Wait, so are you going back out with him?”

“No, we just didn’t click.”

“Ok, good, because I found out that Craigslist has personals, and I thought about setting you up on a blind date. Actually, I thought we could double date.”

Jessie actually liked this idea. Maybe an extra couple would make things smoother… Or maybe it would be double disaster.

Before closing her door, Jessie heard her sister yell one last thing.

“By the way, you should really start wearing a bra with that dress.”

— This story, at least the first half, based on how I want to take a girl out. The second half is about how I figure it would actually turn out.

“Fact: Ferrets attack more people than grizzly bears.”

Any other day, Jessie would have found this interesting. In fact, two days ago when Greg had first told it to her she had found it interesting. Instead of the usual pickup lines guys tried, this was the first thing he had said to her when he walked up to her at Wal-Mart. Then, it made her think he was an interesting and intelligent guy. Now, after hearing about thirty random facts, she was bored.

Jessie didn’t respond after hearing this for the second time. A few minutes later, Greg’s phone had beeped and he started texting back. Jessie found her chance to strike back.

“Fact: Texting while driving increases your chances of crashing.” His look informed her he failed to see her irony. Neither of them expected the irony that followed.

After finishing his message and looking back at the road, he had just enough time to notice a billoard for a gentlemen’s club. He hadn’t even noticed the driver that had veered into his lane.

Luckily, the other car did notice and swerved just in time to miss Jessie and her date, though he ended up in a ditch. Greg stopped the car and noticed Jessie was sweating just as much as he was. Greg decided he should go check on the other driver. Jessie decided her new deodorant was as good as claimed.

The other driver was sweating too, but he was okay. Greg asked him what had happened, and the driver told him that he had been staring at a “Don’t Text and Drive” billboard wondering how many crashes are caused by people reading billboards.

The driver was able to get his car out of the ditch, and Greg safely got Jessie to Applebee’s. He had originally wanted to take her to O’Charleys, but she talked him out of that. The only thing that she would let be the same as her last date was the little black dress, size 2.

Greg wasn’t too nervous to talk to or look at Jessie. In fact, he talked too much, and he spent a lot of time looking at her, not always at her face. Greg was a very confident guy, probably because of his good looks. He wasn’t at all nervous to walk up to his ex-classmate and ask her out when he saw her in Wal-Mart. He was carrying some protein shake mix, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. Jessie was carrying some feminine hygiene products, and she was trying to hide that.

Jessie hadn’t spent much time with Greg in high school. In fact, she hadn’t even recognized him at first. But she figured that she’d give him a chance. He seemed different than other guys, and she thought that would be a good thing. Now though, she was sick of hearing about bees that pollinate apple trees, Greg’s theory about how the restaurant had been named. He assumed the original owner was chasing an apple thief through an orchard when he was stung by a bee. Now she was starting to question his sanity.

Jessie had ordered milk with her dinner, but as soon as the waiter sat it down, she had a horrible thought of the milk spilling on her dress and making her look like a cow. Greg noticed her frightfully looking at the milk, and asked her. She explained her fear.

“Actually,” he explained, “Holstein cows are white with black spots, so it would be inverted. Also, did you know that ‘cow’ actually refers to female cattle that have had a calf? Most people just refer to cattle as cows, though that’s technically incorrect. You would be a heifer since you haven’t had a calf.”

The conversation suddenly paused. Greg realized that he didn’t know whether or not Jessie had a kid and may have just put her on edge. He had put her on edge, but mainly because he had just compared her to a cow, or heifer, or whatever.

“So do you watch much TV?” Jessie was trying to change the conversation into something that wouldn’t involve cattle, ferrets, or any other random fact. It didn’t work.

“Not really. I try to stay active to stay in shape. Did you know that you actually burn more calories while sleeping than watching TV?” Jessie actually thought that appropriate, as he was putting her asleep.

She turned her attention to her food. She noticed a hair in her corn, but Greg identified it as a strand of silk from the ear of corn. “There’s actually one strand of silk for every kernel of corn. It’s kind of amazing they get most of them out when you think about it.”

Jessie was able to finish her meal without learning any other facts. They received the check and Greg pulled out his wallet. Jessie decided, since there was no way she’d go on a second date with him, that she should pay her part. As she pulled her wallet out of her purse, she noticed Greg put his wallet back in his pocket. Apparently she was supposed to pay for all of it.

She gave her debit card to the waiter and started placing some cash on the table for the tip. “How much do you think he deserves? Five dollars?”

“Well, he didn’t really go above and beyond, so maybe just two.”

“I’ll leave four.”

After she signed the receipt they stood to leave. Before Greg walked away from the table, she saw him out of the corner of her eye pocket two dollars from the tip pile.

Jessie kept her eyes on the road the entire way home. When they arrived at her house, Greg actually invited himself in.

“Well, I live with my sister, and the last time she woke up and saw a guy in our house she didn’t know, she hit him with a frying pan.” Greg actually didn’t mind this risk, finding it an acceptable gamble, but he took the hint.

“Well, we don’t want that to happen, so I’d best stay at home.” Jessie got out of the car and wished him goodnight.

Jessie opened the door, and her sister was rolling on the floor laughing. She had to ask what was going on.

“You just missed the funniest commercial ever. Did you know that ferrets attack more people than grizzly bears?”

Jessie walked to her room and responded without looking back.

“Ya, I’ve heard that before.”

— This story based on real and imaginary events; so I’d guess you can call them complex events. If you haven’t seen the Mountain Dew ferret commercial, you should get on Youtube right now.

“I’ll take it.”

Jessie handed the garment to the cashier along with some cash. The register beeped and displayed “Little Black Dress, Size 2.”

—

From the first ultrasound, her parents thought she would be a boy. Her dad had picked out the perfect name. You see, he was a Rick Springfield fan, and this was his chance to pay homage to his favorite song. A few months later, it was discovered too late that their child wasn’t to be the son they thought, but luckily, they didn’t have to change the name, just the spelling. Thus Jessie entered the world.

Through high school, Jessie was always a tomboy. All of her friends were guys, and she hated the girls and their stuckup attitude. At this point, you’re probably painting a mental picture of a girl wearing glasses, jeans, and an oversize black t-shirt in a not so girly way. This was true for the most part, except that she was actually still attractive, just not sexy.

As the saying goes, ‘everyone changes after high school’. The problem with this saying is that few people actually change much. Some do, and Jessie was one of them. Jessie returned from college a few years later, and started setting the world on fire. During her years away, Jessie had become incredibly sexy. You need to understand that Jessie didn’t realize that she had become so desirable until she had returned home. While she was away, guys hit on her all the time, but she just assumed they were desperate and she turned them all away. So when Jessie came home, looking like a goddess, she still lacked the attitude of any other hot girl. It is for this reason that things get interesting.

—

Dee (short for something, but no one really knew what) was the first guy that really talked to Jessie upon her return. He had been somewhat of a friend with Jessie in high school, and even though he wasn’t the most attractive guy, he thought he would try getting a date with her. His friends took one look at her and starting placing bets; the problem was that no one would bet on Dee, including himself. He walked up to the bar and congratulated her on completing college, something he had failed to do… twice. All six of Dee’s friends’ jaws dropped when she gave him a hug then a kiss on the cheek. Dee returned to the group, with her number in his phone, and a date for Saturday.

Dee was shaking from the shock. He never thought he would get a chance to go out with such a girl. “Gabe, you have to give me some pointers. You have to help me out.”

Gabe didn’t know what to tell him. Ya, Gabe had landed a beautiful girl, but he was also a very handsome guy. Dee needed something besides The Gabe Method. “You need to ask Marv. He’s in a new relationship… You don’t want to ask me advice. I’m practically married.”

Marv too tried handing off the responsibility. “Does she have MySpace? That’s Mitch’s department.”

Mitch, very drunk, leaned against Dee, wrapped his arm around Dee’s shoulders, got very close to his face, trying to focus on his eyes, and slurred something like “just be yourself, man.” To the other six fairly-sober people in the group, it sounded like good advice.

—

Jessie was excited. For once, she was glad to be asked out by someone she knew might want something more than sex. She started getting ready; she rarely dressed up like this. She was so excited to pull out her new little black dress, size 2. For the last month she’d been looking for a reason to wear it, and tonight was the first. But it didn’t matter if it was the first or the hundredth time, a little black dress was always good luck… Right?

Dee rang her door bell two minutes before eight. She walked down to let him in, saying, “you’re a few minutes early; I’m not quite ready but come on in.” She didn’t know that he’d actually been on the porch for ten minutes building up the courage to hit the button. He didn’t know that even if he’d been thirty minutes later, she still wouldn’t have been ready.

The little black dress may not have been the good luck charm Jessie had hoped for. The night quickly went downhill. Dee offered to drive, and Jessie accepted, before she saw what he was driving. Upon seeing the rusted sub-compact, she asked “are you doing a freecreditreport.com commercial?”

“Huh?” Dee didn’t get the reference, and Jessie just let it go, but a few minutes later she joked, “its a bummer the Cash for Clunkers program just ended.” He asked why, and, realizing she had just made fun of his car and felt bad about it, she decided to change the subject.

“So where are you taking me to eat?”

There’s not much of a feeling to describe what Dee suddenly felt other than panic. He had forgot to ask her where she wanted to go before they left, and didn’t know what to say. He was in such a panic, he didn’t even realize he’d ran a red light until he heard Jessie scream as a car swerved around them. He slammed on the brakes and stopped in the middle of the road, causing more traffic to swerve around them. He then pulled into a parking lot to collect his thoughts, trying to figure out how he was going to explain his behavior. He looked up, and saw he was in an O’Charleys parking lot, and suddenly he thought about how Mitch could come up with grandiose lies and stories right on the spot.

“I’m so sorry about that. I was going to take you to a restaurant downtown that was recommended to me, but forgot that I couldn’t get reservations, so decided to bring you here instead. I sort of paniced at first because I thought we’d already passed it.” Smooth, he thought to himself, good save.

Jessie, sweating and knuckles still white on the door handle, murmured, “Oh…”

As Dee led his date into the restaurant, he started worrying about whether he had enough money if she decided to get something expensive. Jessie, still sweating from the car, started to wonder if that new deodorant would work as well as the commercials claimed.

After they ordered, they sat silent, Dee avoiding eye contact with Jessie. Finally, he tried breaking the silence.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, hoping to start a conversation.

“What it would be like to be an Egyptian on the moon.”

Dee’s face went completely blank. Very slowly, he said, “What?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, just something a friend posted on Facebook earlier. It’s not like I’m a deep philosophical thinker or anything.” After an awkward silence, she asked him, “So what are you thinking about.”

Still staring off at other people, Dee replied without looking at her.

“Boobs.” His answer was short and simple, but it wasn’t until a few seconds later that he realized what he’d said. Glancing at Jessie’s cleavage, bulging from her low cut little black dress, he stuttered. “Not yours! I wouldn’t want to stare at yours. I mean, not that they don’t look good, but… No, yours are great. Just like you… Sexy, perfect.” So much for smooth.

Dee dropped his head on the table with a loud thud. Oddly, at the same time, someone from another table made the sound of a horse neighing. After a pause, Dee tried to recover, continuing shamefully.

“I saw that girl over there, leaning over to feed her kid, and I stared trying to figure out how her boobs weren’t falling out, as much as they are already pushed out. I wasn’t trying to be perverted or anything, I was just curious.”

Jessie decided the date desperately needed a change of pace, so she decided to be spontaneous, but didn’t really put any thought into her following actions. She stood up and started bending over the table.

“Here, you’ll be able to see better this close.” As she bent over, she suddenly asked herself ‘what am I doing’ and decided to sit back down. In the motion of sitting down quickly, since she was leaning over the table, the very breasts she was showing off hit her ice water and spilled it right down her chest. The cold water took its affect, and soon the top of her little black dress was the attention of the entire section of diners, including Dee.

After using an entire stack of paper towels, and borrowing a dinner jacket from a nearby gentleman, Jessie was no longer the focus of attention, and the couple was finally able to eat their food.

After eating, Dee asked, though he knew the answer. “So I’m guessing you just want to call it a night and head home so you can get out of that dress.” Oddly, he really didn’t mind giving up for the night. It had been a disaster, and he was ready to go home. He felt some Keystone would be oddly appropriate for the evening.

Jessie also looked forward to getting home, but not because of the little black dress. She could never hate wearing it; it was the rest of the night that brought her down. She’d had the worst date ever, of all time.

As she walked in the house her sister looked up at her with eager anticipation. Jessie said only one thing before heading to her room for the night.

“There’s no way I could possibly have another date that bad.”

— This story based largely on my imagination, spurred by a few random Facebook comments. Seriously, where did this ‘egyptian on the moon’ stuff come from?

Also, to avoid possible confusion, I’ll note that The Gabe Method isn’t really anything like The Borries Method. I’m not sure how my method would work when picking up a girl… Maybe quite well in fact… Hmm…

Written on my Verizon Wireless Blackberry