Submitted by Sara:

Jeff showed up to the bar on our first date with his polo shirt inside-out.  If that wasn't bad enough, he was sweating profusely.

Maybe he was just nervous.  Whatever it was, the smell was more than enough of a turn-off.  Still, I thought that it would be mean to not give him a chance.  Like I said, he may just have been nervous.  Very nervous.

The first question Jeff asked when we sat down for drinks was, "Have you ever been married?"

"No, Jeff.  I haven't."

"Really?"

"Why 'really'?"

"I don't know.  I figured that someone like you would have been."

I'm sure that he meant it as a compliment, and so I tried to take it as one.  At first.

Then, he added, "Because you're definitely old enough to have been married."

I raised my eyebrows and raised my glass.  "Cheers," I said, toasting him.  Well, how else could I handle it?  The guy was obviously socially awkward, and we continued with the chit chat.  He seemed harmless.

Up until:

"Do you like power tools?"

I said, "I can't say that I do, Jeff."

"Because I'm building something awesome in my garage, and I'm building it out of power tools."

"Wow.  What are you building?"

"It's a robot to kill spiders around the house."

"Spiders?"

"Yeah.  I've been working on it since grade school."

"Nice."

"Yeah.  It kills ants really good."

I asked him, "Why do you want to kill spiders and ants?"

He corrected me, "I don't want to kill ants, but I have to test it on something before I bring it inside to kill the spiders."

"Oh."

He was quiet for a moment, then finished with, "Want to see it?  It's seven feet tall."

Check please.

Posted in: Stories,Written by a Girl