Because of a Zebra's Butt

Kelsey wrote her first e-mail to me in verse, so that alone made me sit up and take notice.  She was pretty - a blonde with a great smile - and she was applying to several English PhD programs.

I checked out her profile.  Well-written, yes.  Let's check out her photos.  A shot of her on a mountain trail, nice.  A picture of her concentrating over a chess game, great.  A photo of her pressing her tongue to the rear of a zebra, super.

Wait.

With wide eyes and a wider mouth, her tongue was very obviously pressed to a zebra's butt.  The caption read, "Testing for buttsauce."

In my response to her, I complimented her on the creativity of her message, asked her a few harmless questions, and queried about the zebra picture.  I believe that my exact words were, "Did you find any buttsauce on that zebra?"

Her reply to my entire message was two words: "What zebra?"

I wrote back, "Why, the one whose butt you're testing for buttsauce in your profile photo.  I hear that equine buttsauce is especially good."

The next day, that photo was deleted from her profile.  She wrote me another message, in response to the questions from my first e-mail, but without addressing the zebra picture at all.

I surmised that the photo's placement on her profile was a mistake, or that she was embarrassed by it.  Either way, I didn't plan to bring it up again, although the thought crossed my mind that if we ended up kissing, then little atoms of zebra butt would enter my mouth.  Yum!

Kelsey turned out to be very sharp, and I usually like sharp women, so I asked her out. We did dinner, followed by a jam session at her aunt's condo (her aunt wasn't home) over a piano and bottle of wine.

I began playing "Circle of Life" from The Lion King without telling her the name of the song.  She sat forward on the couch and asked, "What's that song?  I know it."

I said, "It's 'Circle of Life' from The Lion King.  The part in the beginning with the elephants, giraffes, and zebras running over to Pride Rock for the presentation of Simba."

"Okay!" she yelled, loud enough for plentiful condo neighbors to hear, "I know what this is about.  The fucking zebra was a dare on my trip to Africa!  Now you know, and you can shut the fuck up about it."

Kelsey was being a little too sharp.  That's not what I meant at all by playing the song, or by mentioning zebras.  The evening had gone from fun to zero in a moment, and it was, somehow, my fault.

Quite apart from being misunderstood, I don't like being spoken to that way, and I told her, "That's not why I played the song–"

"Okay, sure," she interrupted.

"...but I don't think that being dared to lick a zebra's ass is a big deal."

She said, "Stop talking about it!" then yelled something unintelligible and put her hands over her ears.

"Are you done?" I asked when she was done.

She didn't respond, but she stared at me, like she was deciding whether to continue with the date, or to flay me and display my attractive remains as a warning over the gate of some exotic zebra-lickers-only fortress, built high in the rolling hills.

I turned back to the piano.  "I'll play zebra-free songs from here on out."

"Okay, that's it.  Please go."  She stood and opened the door for me to exit, which I did as soon as possible.

My date was over.  All because of some stupid zebra, tens of thousands of miles away.