3/08/2011

Mr. Wonderful's Little Secret

Story Submitted by Ginger:

When I first encountered Tom the accountant online, it was the message he wrote that drew my attention.  It was simple, polite, and just intriguing enough for me to want to write back.  His profile made him seem like an adventurous guy, but nothing stuck out like, "Whoa, I can't believe you did that."  After some talking, we decided to meet at a local bakery for a post-dinner date.

We met outside, and he said, "I brought a surprise for you."  He pulled out a folded brochure from his pocket and handed it to me.  It looked like the kind you'd find at the doctor's office, advertising prescription drugs, but with one major difference: it was a brochure about Tom.  It contained blurbs about him, how amazing he was, and his adventures, but it also had several photos of him, or rather his head, clearly superimposed onto the bodies of body-builders.

I thought that he was joking around.  Then, he said, "Those are all really me," he said, "And yes, everything in there is true.  I won a few – a couple – of body-building awards."

I pointed to one of the pictures and said, "The guy in this photo is over six feet.  You can't be over five-ten."

He said, "Trick of the camera.  I always look taller with my clothes off.  I'd be more than happy to show you."

"That's okay," I said, then read one of the blurbs.  It read, "Tom has visited most world capital cities and was received by five presidents."

"Oh yes, that," he said, "Mostly for body-building.  The others were for saving the lives of the presidents' sons or something."

I smiled and put the brochure down.  "Very funny joke.  A lot of effort went into it.  Clever."

He looked upset and lifted up his shirt to reveal a gut that may have once been an impressive six-pack.  He said, "I may have let myself go, but those are all true!"

I scanned the brochure again and read, "It says here you hold five degrees, including a doctorate.  What are you doing as an accountant?"

He said, "I like a more quiet life.  Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

I asked, "How did you have time and money to visit so many countries with all of your studies?"

He replied, "Scholarships and fellowships.  I've won them all."

"Well, I–"

"I've won them all!"

"Uh–"

"I won!  I won!"  He ripped the brochure away from me, tore it into little pieces, threw them on the ground, stamped on them, and then froze and snapped back into normal-person-mode.  He asked, "Ready for dinner, now?" and smiled.

I said, "I–uh–I left my oven on.  Excuse me," and hurried back to my car and drove off, leaving him there.  It might have been mean, but there was no way I was going to spend any more time than I had to with this megalomaniacal prick.

9 comments:

  1. My favorite part was when he casually mentioned that he saved the lives of the presidents' sons. "All in a day's work for Tom the Bodybuilder!"

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  2. "The others were for saving the lives of the presidents' sons or something."

    Because that's so common it's hardly worth remembering!

    And lol at "I left my oven on". I can't believe someone actually used that as an excuse!

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  3. Now I'm on expert on American presidents but haven't the last three all had daughter's only, I mean unless off course he's referring to president's of other countries or this was before 1993, in which case he's a hero.

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  4. Sawyer, your incorrect usage of apostrophes and the plural vs. the possessive spellings of nouns makes me sad.

    Also, I had assumed that he was speaking about presidents from all over the world, not in the US. It would be "harder" for someone to call BS about an international rescue mission rather than a domestic one. I'm sure that the rescuing of a US president's "son" would have made the front page news SOMEWHERE.

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  5. Did he also have tiger blood and Adonis DNA?

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  6. Agree with themediator - Love the 'I left the oven on' :)

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  7. ^ That's actually the perfect exit because it's confusing enough they can't react immediately, but they're going to figure it out quickly. Well done Ginger!

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  8. Good one OP.

    What a freak.

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  9. Another vote for the awesomeness of "I left the oven on."

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