After about a month, he came into the office one Friday and asked me if I would like to go out for dinner and dancing that evening. I said yes immediately – I couldn’t wait to spend some time with him out of the office atmosphere, where I could step out of my office persona and have a little fun.

I spent a couple of hours getting ready. I wanted to look great. I wanted him to know that there was a lot more to me than answering the phones! I had on typical “disco” attire (this was in the 80’s – the Dark Ages, as my teenager says), huge shoulders, and my hair and makeup were plentiful. I was also about a foot taller, wearing my favorite platforms. I looked as good as you could look in those dreadful fashions! And I was hungry, having not eaten in anticipation of a nice, romantic dinner.

The doorbell rang, and there he was. He looked me up and down in a manner women really detest, and said, “Dude! You look hot!” and made a lecherous sound. Dude? Warning bells went off, but I was not yet ready to heed them. Then I got a good look at him.

Yikes! He had on spandex pants and a loud, striped blazer. His hair was greased back – he looked like a cross between Elvis and Beetlejuice, except for his platforms, which were giving mine some serious competition. Apparently, this was his “out of the office” persona. Well, I thought, his personality is more important to me. If things worked out, I could always subtly influence his fashion sense – of lack of it.

Well, as I found out, the personality I fell for was also an “office only” thing. The first indication I had was his car. It was a bright baby blue-and-rust Gremlin, dented on both sides, with a broken taillight and a cracked windshield. The passenger side seat’s vinyl was cracked, and when I sat down, the cracked vinyl poked a hole in my nylons. The passenger side window wouldn’t roll up all the way, so I had a constant breeze in my face, which quickly took care of the hairdo I had spent so long on.

We stopped for dinner first. Well, I thought as we pulled up in front of Denny’s, maybe he’s just thrifty. I found just how thrifty when he had an argument with the waitress for not letting him order from the children’s menu. “Sir, you really must be 12 or under to order from that menu,” she kept repeating, looking at me as if I was responsible for the way he was behaving. After bickering back and forth, he decided on a side salad and water. A side salad and water! Of course, I had to order the same thing, even though by this time my stomach was beginning to speak up. At least the ice water cooled off my face, which was flaming red from embarrassment.

We finished up, he going on and on about his lousy job, his lousy boss, his lousy everything, and I with my eyes glued to my plate, since I could not look up without seeing someone staring at us and gossiping about the cheapskate at our table), and rose to leave. Why was I not surprised to find that he had forgotten his wallet? I paid the bill, and we walked out, he loudly proclaiming that he would “never, ever eat in this execrable (his word was slightly more colorful) restaurant again!” and I slinking out with my head hung in shame.

We got back into his “execrable” car (in my thoughts I used the same word he did!), and as the vinyl poked another hole in my nylon and my stomach produced a particularly enthusiastic GOINNNG!, I decided I just wanted to go home and cut my losses and lick my wounds. How could someone as wonderful as he appeared to be turn out as different as day and night? I didn’t get it.

The highlight of this date from hell (after I told him I thought I might have gotten food poisoning from the salad and maybe was going to be sick right in his wonderful car), was when he decided to “hunt some squirrel” while driving me home. Every time he saw a critter on the road, he swerved to try and flatten it, whooping and looking at me as if to say, Isn’t this fun? I managed a sickly grin in return, hanging on for dear life and hoping that my remark about getting sick in the car would not turn out to be true. But I totally lost it when one of the “critters” he chased turned out to be a cat with a collar, someone’s beloved pet.

“STOP THIS CAR THIS MINUTE!” I yelled at the top of my voice. He gave me a “What? What’d I do?” look and I marveled at how I never noticed before how stupid he looked. He pulled over and stopped. Before I jumped out of the car, I turned to him and gave him a blasting that probably scorched his hair, I was so mad. “And don’t you ever speak to me again!” I finished up, satisfied that after that tongue-lashing, he probably didn’t want to talk to me or see me again, ever.

As I walked the half mile home, I resolved to be much more careful in my choice of people to date. And I kept that resolve, at least until I met my ex-husband!