Blind Date

The Setup

As I saw the disaster that was about to happen, my mind flashed back to how I'd gotten into this mess in the first place. That morning had introduced the perfect day for a walk. Granted, I normally went for a jog on clear, sunny days like these, but that day I decided to slow things down a bit. A slight, refreshing breeze rippled my wind suit, and the temperature couldn't have been more suited for a stroll in the park.

Sparky, my quirky dalmatian, noticed it too. He mainly noticed the trees, though. I stopped to let him do his thing and was just about to continue enjoying the day when Cindy Braddock practically ran into me.

"Hi, Jane!" she said, panting for air. "I'm glad I found you here; I thought you'd be out for your afternoon jog."

"Hey, Cindy," I said. "Yeah, me and Sparky here decided to take it slow and steady today. It's too nice outside to rush through." At the mention of his name, Sparky wagged his tail as if to agree.

"Isn't it, though?" she said. "Anyway, I just got some great news, and I couldn't wait to tell you about it, so I rushed down here as quickly as I could."

She was excited, all right. I hadn't seen her that hyper since her last-

"—blind date!"

"Huh...What?" I stuttered.

"Me and Tina set you up with a blind date!" Cindy repeated. "Isn't that great?"

I had heard somewhere that counting to ten curbs your anger, so I tried it.

One...Two...TEN!

"No!" I said, perhaps a bit too forcefully; poor Sparky whined as if I'd reprimanded him instead of Cindy. "Absolutely not! Are you two insane? Don't you remember our last double blind date?"

"Do I ever!" Cindy's eyes rolled back dreamily and her smile grew wider. I wanted to knock those yellow-stained smoker's teeth right out of her. "Bob was so romantic, Jane. He even brought me flowers, and candy, and—"

"—and wrecked your 2006 Ford Mustang after having one too many that night. Not to mention getting himself arrested with a DUI."

"Well, nobody's perfect like you, Jane," she said. "And besides, I seem to recall you having a good time yourself."

"You recall wrongly," I said. "As I recall, you were too smashed yourself to recall much of anything coherent. Oh, and by the way, let's not forget Frank, my so-called Prince Charming and your date's best bud. And speaking of 'Bud'," I was on a roll now, hands gesturing, head bobbing-the whole nine yards, "he ordered a whole pitcher of the stuff before the appetizers even had a chance to cool off. I've never been so embarrassed in my entire life. So tell Tina that both of you can just forget it. Capeesh?"

She said yes and that she was sorry, was only trying to help—yata, yata, yata—and that was that.

Only, that wasn't that. And now, here I was sitting in Mangioni's waiting for Mike Russell to return from the men's room and praying he would instead fall in the john and accidentally flush himself away for good.

As fate-or good, old-fashioned luck-would have it, something was about to go down the tubes after all.

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