Oopsie Poopsie

Lest you think my life consists only of work, let me share a story from the other side of my life: dating. Now you can think that my life consists only of work and dating. And you'd be close to right. Continuing my journey through Singledom at the ripe old age of 29 seems to create more than ample opportunity to talk about dating with everyone with whom I come into contact...and I do mean everyone. It usually goes something like this:

Mallorie are you dating anyone?

Nope.

What?! Why not? You're sweet, I bet the guys are just knocking down your door.

Nope.

Really?! That's so weeeeiiird! I'm going to talk to my sister's husband's next-door-neighbor's great aunt to see if she knows any nice single men. There must be someone out there for you.

Oh really? You don't have to do that, but that's so sweet of you! Thank you so much!

Oh no it's no problem really! I think I saw a man walking past her house the other day. I don't know how old he is, or what he's doing with his life, or if he's nice, but I didn't see a wedding ring--you guys would make such a perfect couple. I'll see if she can track him down and set you two up!

Oh wow. That's very thoughtful of you. Thanks so much.


Then, a few days later I get a random number on my cell phone and I put on my nice charming phone voice, "hello?" And thus, the blind date experience begins.

Let me first set the stage: I live in a giant apartment complex, in the middle of the maze of apartments. We have the intercom/buzzer at the outside door where someone can buzz you then you can speak to each other in garbled fuzzy tones to arrange entry into the building, followed by a very loud buzzer akin to that heard when prison doors open to let you into a maximum security holding area. Well, I don't have the intercom hooked up to my phone, so when someone arrives at my apartment, I have to physically wind my way down through the maze to the parking lot to let them in or just to leave from there. Now on to the meaty part of the story.

A little while ago I had two dates in one weekend. Don't get too excited--this is a very rare occurrence for me, but there you have it. First up we have Frank planned for Friday night. Frank and I had talked on the phone briefly but we didn't talk much about what he looked like. Given the aforementioned apartment/parking situation, Frank and I made arrangements for him to call when he got to the parking lot and I would just come down and meet him there. I've done this before with other blind dates and usually when I walk out the door, there's a man standing next to his car. I'm pretty sure that's the universal sign for "I'm your blind date come to pick you up and I've been waiting here awkwardly for the past ten minutes while you took your sweet time to come down." That's part one of the story. Hold on to that whilst I paint another picture for you.

Next up we have Larry. Earlier that week, I had run into Larry when I was leaving for work. Larry lives in my apartment building and the parking spaces we've been assigned are right next to each other, so we've met briefly in the past and we occasionally see other coming and going. Usually we exchange a few brief hellos and polite chatter then move on our ways. This time however, he asked for my number and we made plans to go out that Saturday. Now remember those names. It's important. Frank-Friday night blind date. Larry-Saturday guy in my apartment building blind date.

It is now Friday night. My phone rings and it's Frank, "Hey Mallorie I'm just downstairs in the visitor parking" "Ok great, I'll be right down." Fatal mistake #1: I should have asked if he planned on positioning himself in the universal blind date position. But I didn't ask. I come down the stairs and open the door into the visitor parking area and am greeted by two elderly women bustling through the doorway with all their latest purchases, so I smile and politely hold the door for them, while simultaneously scanning the parking lot for the single man next to his car. No single man next to his car. Here's where it gets awkward, but keep in mind it all happens very quickly. I'm trying to scan quickly so I don't look like a total dummy just wandering lost around the very small parking lot. I then notice a black car parked 3 cars down still running with a guy inside and I think, well, maybe he didn't see me come out so he wasn't ready for the universal sign yet. I walk slowly over trying to catch his attention to see if he'll recognize a potential fellow blind dater and actually get out of the car and make the sign like he's supposed to. I'm edging nearer to the passenger side window and finally I catch his attention. He raises his head and gives me a "hey what's up" nod. Nice. So I'm going out with a guy who not only doesn't know the blind date sign, but also isn't going to acknowledge me--a total stranger he's about to take to dinner--with more than a nod. Nice. But he did acknowledge, and there's no other man around, so he must be my blind date. I reach for the door handle to let myself into the car, and as I do so I see the passenger side window rolling down as if this person wants to just chat casually with me and not, in fact, take me on a date. But don't worry dear Reader, I wasn't so easily swayed by this strange behavior as some weaker women may have been--I just kept right on reaching for that door handle to let myself into the car.

The next part, if it were to appear in a movie, would happen in slow motion.
I begin to think,
hmm, this car kind of looks familiar...
(grasping the door handle)
Why would I recognize this car? Where have I seen it before?
(Pulling open the door and seeing the window being rolled down)
Why is he rolling down his window instead of getting out to come introduce himself and open my door?
(Opening the door wider and gesturing as if I'm going to climb into the car by turning my body just slightly so that I could slide my bum onto the seat)
It's funny but this car looks a lot like...
(freezing then very quickly changing the direction of my bum so as to look like I was not getting into the car, but simply standing next to the car)...
...this car looks a lot like...
"Oh! Hi Larry! uhh...how's it going?"
It looked like Larry's car (my date for the next night, you remember), because it was, in fact, Larry's car with, that's right, Larry inside.

The conversation that followed I cannot fully describe, either because it's one of those few times when you really had to be there, or because it's so embarrassing that I just can't bring myself to actually print it publicly. But essentially it consisted of a very shocked Larry trying to figure out what I was doing getting into his car, and a very shocked Mallorie trying to smoothly act like it was intentional. You know how smooth I am.

Turns out Frank was parked around the corner. Awesome. Way to go Frank.

Remind me to avoid blind dates in the future. Or to at least ask what kind of car they drive. And tell Larry to stop parking in the visitor parking.