Expecting the task of crafting a suitable retort to Piper’s gracious reply to be as arduous as it was daunting in the wake of my newfound sobriety, I was relieved to find the process came with ease after the crimson-haired angel’s tremendous bode of confidence, and that it practically wrote itself. In no time at all my follow-up message to Piper was constructed with care and sent without haste. In it, I proposed that we see Jojo Rabbit (2019) at the local cinema that weekend, and afterwards take a moonlit stroll down the street to the local Taco Bell, where we might discuss the film, or shoot whatever other breeze we may fancy. She responded in kind to my proposal, and just like that, in merely three Facebook messages I managed to lay the groundwork for, as well as secure, my first date ever – something I had failed to accomplish in the two decades I spent wanting it so desperately. It all came together like the implausible pipe dream it was after this rapid whirlwind of events came ripping through my mundane and lonely life, and suddenly change was on my horizon for the first time in as long as I could remember. Hope was on the horizon.

 

 

First Date: Genesis

It’s the night of Friday, November the 8th, 2019, and less than 24 hours before I’d finally get to hang out with a girl and dip my toes into the pool of companionship and belonging once and for all. Would I fail miserably? Would she fall madly in love with me? Would I get my first kiss? Would we hold hands? Would I do something that’d make her call me creepy? Hundreds of harrowing hypotheticals such as these raced around feverishly in my restless mind, ensuring I didn’t get a second of sustained slumber before the biggest day of my life. Time crawled by as I laid sleepless in my bed waiting for morning to arrive, and I had no choice but to lie there for an eternity and let my thoughts slowly eat me alive until the sun finally began to rise outside my window and it was time to rise and shine at last.

 

 

 

Then The Morning Comes

The night may have seemed dire, but by morning the unbearable elation of the day had begun to take hold. This was the dawn of a new era in my life. I had a date with a woman who genuinely wanted to spend time with me, and baby, when I stepped foot out into that fresh morning air, I stepped foot into a new world entirely. My excitement for the upcoming evening was so colossal it dwarfed every other aspect of my life, and there was nothing on heaven or earth that could bring me down… at least for a couple hours. With some intense deliberation, I meticulously selected each part of my dashing ensemble for the occasion, and set them out as I headed for the bathroom to make sure my face and body were equally as dapper. As an unsightly fatty on the verge of full-fledged obesity I didn’t have much to work with, but I prided myself in making my unseemly appearance as clean cut and hygienically presentable as possible.

 

After trimming my beard and shaving my neck and the scruffy parts of my cheeks, I spent the morning in the bathroom bathing, scrubbing, picking, washing, and brushing my physical appearance to a pristine sheen. Nearly done with my routine, I made the mistake of taking a moment to look closely at my face. Standing inches from the mirror, I began picking at the imperfections, but was fortunate enough to catch myself before I pinched, squeezed, cut, or poked anything to a noticeable degree – something I had done so many times in the past in preparation for going anywhere public. By the time I was fully dressed and plucky as can be, I still had a good few hours before it was time to leave for the evening show. Even by my standards of getting to the theater as early as possible for a film, this was too early. 

 

 

Materialistic Me

With the abrupt abundance of spare time before I had to set off and no ideas of how to fill it, the self doubt started to creep back into my psyche. “What if I say something creepy?” “What if she never wants to see me again?” I needed to stop the tainted logic from spreading before it consumed me entirely, but with nothing else coming to mind to combat it I jumped onto the couch, turned the television on, booted up my beloved Xbox Series X, and headed to the online store to engage in one of my most unhealthy, as well as most utilized, coping mechanisms: indulging my materialistic tendencies. Once onto the Xbox Digital Storefront I navigated to the deals page, and did my best to replace the spontaneous surge of self-doubt with the incessant compulsion to find games not yet in my collection that I simply needed to own. I spent hours upon hours at a time getting lost perusing the online Xbox marketplace, and often spent more time shopping for games than I did playing them. Due to my limited budget I only actually purchased a few titles each time, and added the rest of the games I desired to a wishlist I’d pieced together over the years filled with hundreds of games, all of which I fully expected to buy one day.

 

 

Although clearly not a good habit, this behavior was actually a huge step forward for me, as my Xbox browsing is just what remained after I managed to whittle down a much, much larger problem with years of effort. A bonafide yuppie, at one point I had the same obsession with compulsively browsing, except it was with the Xbox Store and Amazon, eBay, etsy, Chewy, Nintendo eShop, Fandango at Home Store, and the Meta Quest Online Store, along with several others. After going from losing whole days browsing this fleet of online stores to just hours on the Xbox store almost exclusively, I tried not to beat myself up too much about it. I still browsed the other sites, but only when the loneliness or depression became too much to bear. I always told myself someone couldn’t possibly be as alone as I was for as long as I was without picking up at least a vice or two, and I was just lucky mine wasn’t hooch or heroine.

 

Roleplaying games, first-person shooters, tactical strategy, platformers, action, beat ’em ups, JRPGs, horror, puzzle, adventure, and even sports titles: I needed to own them all. Just as I had hoped, only a few pages deep I managed to lose myself for a few hours until our showtime was just a bit more than an hour away. Quick to my feet and on my way out, I popped an Imodium, grabbed my phone, wallet, and keys, blew precisely 13 kisses to my elderly cat, Jack, and headed out the door. I positively adored the bidet I had installed in my the bathroom of my apartment, and just the thought of having to use a public restroom without one, or with soap that might not be antibacterial, gave me the willies. I used Imodium liberally, and popped one before I went to work, or almost anywhere else. An over-the-counter medication typically used to treat severe diarrhea, at some point I realized that I could use one tablet of it to all but guarantee I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom for at least the next five hours or so. Learning this, I stocked up on hundreds of them, and began taking them whenever I had to leave as a means of preventing the need to go to the bathroom anywhere but at my apartment or my parent’s place. 

 

It’s easy to see why I was so quick to suggest dinner and a movie for our first date in my drunken proposition, as watching movies has long been one of my favorite pastimes, and it just doesn’t get much better than watching one with someone special. Of course, there was a little more to it than that as well. Dark theaters are known as make-out city, and although not a likely outcome of events, I wanted to make sure that if she wanted to get a little fresh with me she would have the means by which to do so. Without a doubt the ideal location for any date would be at my apartment, but I put that far from my mind, knowing how uncomfortable or scary coming over might be for her before she really got to know me. Instead, I planned on inviting her over after three or four dates at safe, public places. I was not ready for it to be the other way around, either, as she still lived with her folks, and the thought of going to her place was a nightmare. I could hardly deal with interacting with Piper, the last thing I needed was to throw some other humans into the mix. 

 

By the time I reached my car my malicious self-doubt was back with a vengeance. I frantically plugged my phone into the USB  port, put my entire iTunes library on shuffle, and took off. As hard as I tried to vibe away my demons with some good tunes, however, I never managed to get vibing by the time the half-hour drive was over and I was pulling into the theater parking lot. My nerves had always caused perspiration problems for me at the most inopportune times, and by the time I got there my back, pits, and neck were already starting to perspire. I pulled my white 2016 Chevy Malibu into a parking space, and took another deep breath. I simply couldn’t shake the vision of somehow messing everything up and Piper calling me creepy.

 

 

My nerves were pretty bad on their own, but once people could start seeing repulsive dark sweat marks on my shirt there would be no coming back from the hysteria it would induce in me, and Piper would never want to see again. A few lyrically enthralling melodies were usually enough to steady my heart-rate at least a bit, so when a half-hour drive filled with the soothing serenades of my favorite artists did next to nothing I was starting to get desperate. I was forced to seek alternative methods. Sitting in my car, sweat pouring out of me like Cara Delevigne herself was sitting there in the passenger seat in nothing but her skivvies, and just forty-five minutes until showtime, I needed to think fast.

 

 

Are You There God? It’s Me, Mullarkey

I reached deep. Real, real deep, and did something I hadn’t done in earnest since I was practically a child. Before my ailments festered into a full-blown ulcer and I started to look like I’d just stepped out of a swimming pool, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Bowing my head, I put my hands together, and began to pray. “Dear Jesus, um, I’m sorry it’s been so long. Please forgive me for cursing you out those few times in the past when I felt so hopelessly alone and wanted to give up. I blamed it on you, but I always knew it wasn’t your fault. I know, I realize I’m only talking to you now because I want something from you, but who knows, maybe I could start praying again? First, I want to thank you so, so much that I was finally able to meet a girl and go a date. I needed this like only you could ever understand. Thank you that I might have finally found a girl that really does like me for real. Please forgive me for having lustful thoughts about Scarlett Johansson when I watched the trailer for Jojo Rabbit the other day. God, please, PLEASE don’t let me mess this up. Please, if it is your will, let this maybe lead to more dates with Piper. Please let Piper have a good time tonight, please let her not hate the movie I picked for us, and please let Taco Bell have something that she loves to eat. Please, please, PLEASE do not let me be too extremely awkward or creepy tonight. Please help me stop sweating so much, and please let my clothes not show sweat marks or make me look too morbidly obese. If possible, please let tonight maybe lead to my first kiss, otherwise I would settle for hand-holding as well. Thank you, so much for this opportunity. Please let me not be creepy. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, amen.” 

 

I opened my eyes with a newfound tranquil stability. Having finally stopped the flow of sweat, I let out a brief sigh of relief, and then it hit me: I had just re-awoken a part of my life that I hadn’t given any thought to in nearly two decades. A part of my life that was once one of the biggest and most important. A part of my life I all but forgot existed because I cast it aside and spit on it like a piece of trash. I started to think about my dad, and what they did to him, but I managed to catch myself before it all came rushing back. I looked up, and either through God or the placebo effect my praying had managed to calm my frantic mind. I took a few minutes to enjoy this new clarity, and headed for the front doors of the theater.

 

 

To ensure the night went as smoothly as possible, I headed to the front desk to purchase our tickets in advance. She was one of the nicest people I’d ever met, and I didn’t want to leave the possibility open for her to try to pay for her ticket. The guy at the counter flipped a computer monitor over to me displaying the layout of the theater seating and told me to pick two seats – a factor I had overlooked in my planning. Initially indecisive of what the perfect spot might be for my first date ever, I ended up just hurriedly picking the same seats my mother and I always sat in when we saw films: right side of the theater, a few rows up from the back, on the end, with my seat next to the aisle. Once the tickets were bought and the seats were picked, I headed back near the entrance. I took a seat on an unassuming bench in the lobby, and began anxiously awaiting the arrival of the woman of the hour.

 

 

Purpose & Paranoia

This brief moment of downtime turned out not to be the quiet time I was expecting, however, as over the next twenty  minutes countless couples, families, and various other non-distinct groups of people either going to or coming out of films in other auditoriums all had to pass through the lobby – and past me – to do it. As I sat idle a sea of faces passed me by, and my eyes met countless others for an instant before I averted my gaze from each of them almost immediately. If I had found myself in the same situation under different circumstances, it’s the type of turmoil that would have made me crumble at the uncertainty of what the passers-by may be thinking about me. The undying need to be liked by everyone is a sickness, and it’s one that’s plagued me throughout all of my adult life. “Are they thinking I’m creepy?” “Are they thinking I’m a piece of shite?” “Are they laughing to themselves about me for some reason?” 

 

I answered these questions for myself, based entirely on what kind of look each person gave me as they passed by. I told myself I could determine their feelings towards me entirely from the look in their eye and expression on their face as their eyes met mine. The blatant irony to this was that even if you could determine that by an expression, accurately reading facial expressions was something I didn’t even remotely possess the capabilities of doing. You should never assume the worst about anything, but doing so with strangers was a habit I picked up in middle school and still hadn’t kicked. Where I think my paranoia differed from most, however, was that although I told myself all these people were thinking horrible things about me, I always saw myself as in the wrong regardless. So rather than viewing all these pseudo-slanderers as a bunch of meanies who were thinking nasty things about me, I saw them as normies who were simply observing various truths. 

 

Of course, the truth is that next to none of these people were even thinking about me in the first place. Simply in the middle of living their lives, I was just some rando in the crowd who didn’t own a single square millimeter of real estate in their mind. It wasn’t all about me: I needed to remind myself of this often like a toddler whenever I was in public. If I found myself in a situation where I had an explicit and undeniable purpose, however, I could easily brush other’s judgement off and go about my business unfazed. This applied to my job, as there was a concrete and distinct justification for me, the clerk, to be there and to interact with the people, the customers. This applied as I sat on that bench as well, as I was on my first date ever, I had tickets to a show, I was waiting for my girl, and no one could argue my right to be there. Because of this my confidence remained wholly unshaken by the crowd, whereas if I was there under different circumstances that may not have been the case.

 

I always made sure to keep my own facial expressions as stern, steely and serious as possible whenever I was looking at both strangers and familiars alike, but it wasn’t always like that. No one who knows me would believe this, but truth be told at my core I’m a big smiler. With people like family members, co-workers, and even strangers in some circumstances, my natural initial impetuous is to meet them with a big, dopey smile whenever our eyes met. That’s how my mom is, and thats how I wanted to be, but that kind nature was just another casualty of middle school where I learned that smiling at girls is creepy.

 

 

There She Goes

After around thirty minutes wading through the crowds, m’lady came walking through the front doors at last in all her fair-skinned, amber-haired glory. She quickly spotted me on the bench and rushed over, her signature smile n’ stare already out in full effect. “Heyy! How are you doing!? I’m so excited for tonight!”, she enthusiastically exclaimed as I stood up to greet her. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out as my nerves started to come back. I was used to getting tongue-tied around pretty girls, but with Piper at times I found it difficult to form any words at all.

 

“H-hhey! I-I’m pretty good,” I muttered, an answer I was so quick to give anyone that asked me that question – an impulsive, conditioned, unimaginative and mechanical response to an equally drab question I was asked and answered hundreds of times each shift. But this wasn’t some customer, it was Piper, and the response slipped out of my mouth before I could catch myself. I should have answered for real, but decided not to dwell on it. “How are you!? Are you ready for a movie?” I finished with, once again opting not to elevate the quality of our exchange in the slightest with any intelligible input. I glanced back after my delivery and tried my darndest to give her more than an instant of eye contact. She was more than a bit late by my account, and we were surely going to miss some trailers, but for the first time in my cinephile life I didn’t care in the slightest. I handed her one of the pre-purchased tickets, and we headed through the gates to the concession stand. Just as I was about to ask her if she wanted any popcorn or soda I caught myself, and instead walked up to the counter and purchased two large sodas and a large popcorn. As quite possibly the kindest person I’ve ever met, I knew that she could be starving to death and parched, and she still wouldn’t flat-out ask me to buy her something. So, I once again did the dominant, manly thing and bought her food and a drink before she could tell me I didn’t have to. I made sure to turn back and ask her if she wanted any candy as well, just to keep up appearances.

 

I handed a small fortune over to the clerk, and once given the popcorn and our cups, we headed for the soda fountain dispenser. Curious as to her refreshment of choice, I let her go up first. Dr. Pepper has always been my beverage of choice, and as fate would have she made her way straight for the Dr. Pepper dispenser as well. It felt like fate, like we were in the middle of a Dr. Pepper-sponsored, sappy Hallmark Channel love story. I headed up to the machine gleefully after her to fill my own chalice with the invigorating 23 flavors and we continued on, past the gate with our absurdly large concessions and into our auditorium.

 

Continuing through the dark hallway at a swift pace, we managed to reach our destination just as they started to dim the lights, indicating the trailers were over and the film was about to start. Somehow I managed to successfully double-fist my soda and the popcorn nearly all the way to our seats, only to trip over the last set of steps leading up to them and send a bevy of kernels soaring into the aisle in front of us. “Sorry, sorry!” blurted out almost knee-jerk reaction to the mishap, but fortunately there was nobody there to apologize to. If I wasn’t with Piper this spill would have spelt disaster, and missing all the trailers would have given me a panic attack. But I was with Piper, and that was all that mattered.

 

I was began sweating again, and my arms started to shake as I re-centered myself, got a better grip on the food, and we continued up the last few steps to our seats on the end of the aisle. We both sat back into the leather recliners, and all I could think about was what might happen that would result in her calling me creepy. I thought I was doing a pretty good job at hiding my nerves, but apparently not good enough, as I felt something touch my arm just as the studio logos started to appear. I looked over and Piper had her hand resting on my arm, and was looking directly at me. “Relax, Mullarkey. It’s gonna be fine!” She smiled, and somehow I believed her wholly. Something happened in that moment that completely obliterated my every last nerve for the rest of the night and snuffed out my irrational fears. No one else in the world had the power to illicit this sort of response in me, and I was floored by it. Piper had silenced my inner demons, erased all of my self-doubt, and quelled my frantic mind in one fell swoop, and in Piper’s confidence I managed to find my own.

 

 

The Film

I had analyzed every aspect of that night upside-down and backwards to prepare for any problems that might arise, but not long into the film something happened that I had never even considered: Piper talked over the film. She talked at full volume, and she continued to talk throughout the entire thing. She commented on the flamboyant outfit of the Nazi commander, pondered aloud what it might be like to be a Hitler youth, reminisced on the time she had a pet rabbit, and made her thoughts known about nearly every scene and character. Her verbal intrusions knew no bounds, and although at first I struggled to retain a nonchalant attitude towards the distractions, once the film got going they started to grow on me in a peculiar way. 

 

Vehemently opposing even the slightest distraction while watching films with others as a child, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to prevent them from happening or reprehend those who caused them. This included at one point banning all cell phones whenever I watched anything with anyone, pausing the movie and yelling at family members who spoke or made the most minute sound, and chewing out strangers from across the theater who spoke during films or used their phones. All of these things could be traced back to my OCD, but I had long since renounced such immature behavior after entering adulthood. But, I did still consider causing distractions during a film to be a cardinal and most unforgivable sin. That is, until that night with Piper. The thing that perplexed me to no end is that I didn’t just tolerate Piper’s verbal outbursts, I came to prefer them. Suddenly I didn’t want to watch any movies unless it was accompanied by her constant commentary, and this said more about my feelings towards Piper than words ever could.

 

The film itself was phenomenal. When I made our plans for that night I knew my company was something special, but all I never really thought the film would amount to much more than background noise. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I like to get lost in my movies, and even with Piper’s unrelenting commentary, the film’s masterfully executed and flawlessly balanced mix of devastation and hilarity managed to suck me into its satirized WWII-era Deutschland and made me fall in love with its quirky characters and undeniable charm. To put it simply, it’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen, and remains one of my favorites to this day. The fact I was with Piper when I saw it just made it all the more special.

 

When we got to the scene where it was shockingly revealed that one of the main characters was hanged we were both caught off-guard, and right on cue I started to weep like a baby. Whether it was emotional powerhouses like The Green Mile (1999) or Superbad (2007), one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, whenever I watch a movie I can more often than not find something about it worth crying about. Not just from literal sad things that occur in the narrative, but small details, characters, concepts, relationships, or anything else that might remind me of something or someone in my life could be enough to open the floodgates. The fact that this was not only the truly devastating turning point of this film, but that it was also his [REDACTED] that was killed made this film hit me especially hard, but I did everything I could to stop myself from sobbing just feet away from the woman of my dreams. They always say women like men who are in touch with their emotions, but I think ugly crying on our first time out was still a little much. 

 

 

I turned my face away from her in an attempt to hide the tears and discreetly wiped my cheeks repeatedly, but the film continued on, and it wasn’t long before it had us both laughing again. I still marvel how Taika Waititi managed to not just establish the perfectly balanced tone of that movie, but maintain it throughout. By the end of this cinematic masterclass in satirical narrative I had cried and laughed in equal measure, and the optimistic ending set the perfect stage for the rest of my first date ever.

 

Piper turned to me as the credits began to roll with a giant smile, and I responded in kind. A flurry of thoughts raced through my head, but unsure of how to put them into words right then, I instead stood up quietly and headed for the exit as she followed. We tossed out an almost completely full bucket of popcorn and half-empty sodas in what could have been seen as a waste, but I was still glad I gave her the option in case she did want it. Out the theater, past the hallway, and through the lobby, we headed outside and into the parking lot.

 

 

The Walk

On our way in it had been a typical brisk and bright November day, but we were pleasantly surprised on our way out of the theater to find the scenery had transformed into the beginnings of a magical winter wonderland. The ever-darkening gray sky was riddled with an endless sea of alabaster flakes descending from the heavens that landed onto our coats and hair, only to disappear in an instant. A miniature blizzard in the making, it had gotten noticeably colder, and the fluffy flakes were just starting to accumulate on the grassy areas. 

 

 

“It’s soo beeaaauuutttiifuullllllll!”, Piper exclaimed, letting out a small billow of visible air from her mouth and into the frigid night air. Spreading her arms out wide and looking to the heavens, she stuck out her tongue and twirled around in the still emptiness of the parking lot, attempting to catch the flakes with it.

 

“It really is.”, I said, coming through once again with the most riveting commentary. Her childlike behavior caught me off-guard, but intrigued me all the same. I gave her a little smile and we embarked on our trek, reaching the sidewalk in front of the theater, and continuing on alongside the winding city street that would lead us into town and to our local Taco Bell just a few blocks away. Between the heavy snowfall, a rapidly darkening sky, and the fact our pathway was illuminated by moody streetlights, the gorgeous landscape we found ourselves in was a more scenic backdrop than I could have hoped for. The endless barrage of fluffy white flakes continued as we walked swiftly and nearly in-sync with each other as we passed dozens of buildings, homes, and establishments. I looked to her as she walked by my side, and the silence was palpable. I knew this was my opportunity.

 

“I better hurry up and find my ‘in'”, I said to myself, “before I go down as the most insufferably humdrum dolt Piper’s ever had the misfortune of being courted by.” At this point Piper was still a sort of effigy in my mind, more enigma than tangible human being. To get her off the pedestal I had put her on from the moment we met, I hypothesized that I needed to get to know her as a three-dimensional person. What better way to do this, I surmised, than to have a good old-fashioned heart-to-heart with her. I needed to get to know her as an individual so that I could see that she was no more deity than me or anyone else. To do this I first needed an “in”, a topic of conversation I could use to jumpstart our eye-opening exchange. A subject we were both interested and knowledgeable in, and a subject that might branch out into additional topics as we conversed. As we continued to walk, I didn’t know where to start. Attempting to hyper-analyze the situation like I had done with countless situations I found myself in at work with her in the past, it finally came to me just as I was about to burst a blood vessel from thinking so impassionedly. It couldn’t have been more obvious. It was the same inquiry I asked my mother or brother whenever I finished watching a movie with them. Desperate to cut the tension and get some sort of dialogue going between us, I asked her, “Did you like it?”

 

“I thought it was great! Very funny, but kind of sad. What about you?”

 

“I loved it! I’ve kind of found that a lot of the best movies are both hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.”, I concurred.

 

“Hmmm, really? Hmm… I thought the guy that played Hitler was hilarious.” There it was. I couldn’t help but unfurl a bit of a cheeky smile to myself, as this was my opportunity to shine.

 

“Yeah, he was! Actually, did you know that the guy who played Hitler in this movie, Taika Waititi, is the same guy who wrote and directed it!?”

 

“Really!? That’s crazy!”

 

“Yeah, I guess when he was making it he tried to get a bunch of different actors to play Hitler, but nobody wanted to play him so he decided to just play the role himself.”

 

“Woow, interesting! You sure know your stuff!”

 

“Haha, thanks. I love movies!” I said, smugger than the Austrian failed artist himself, and thanked God I had checked the film’s IMDb page prior. And with that home run I was “in”, had gained my sea legs, and was ready to talk about movies with Piper until I was blue in the face. Now altogether less unnerving, the outlook for the rest of the night started to look a lot brighter. With no intention of letting my confidence fade back into the shadows, I continued to pursue the topic of conversation I was the most confident in and asked Piper what her favorite movie of all time was. 

 

“Hmmm, I don’t really know, I’ve never thought about it! Oh! I loved Step Brothers (2008), or Walk Hard (2007)… I grew up watching those. I don’t know, pretty much anything with John C. Reilly in it!” she said with a show of enthusiasm that almost made me forget about her underwhelming answers. And with that juvenile response to one of the single most important questions you can ask another person in life, Piper had irked me for the very first time. I was in shock. I mean, sure, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) is hands-down one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, and nobody is going to argue that John C. Reilly isn’t a national treasure, but these films had about as much depth as the kiddie pool my mom and I gave our wiener dogs baths in. Your favorite films are a testament to your very soul, and to name films like this your favorite movies of all time was a monumental red flag in my book. I needed to believe that Piper was more profound than just slapstick schtick and jokes about ballsacks.

 

 

“Ohhhh… I like him too!… Have you ever seen him in the show ‘Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule’ (2010-17)? It’s so hilariously irreverent and unhinged.” I said, trying desperately not to let the condescending, judgmental things I was thinking come through in my voice. As suspected, she’d never seen the oddball [Adult Swim] series, so I described it to her to the best of my ability as I went off on one of my autistic “special interest” tangents. It was a wildcard and unexpected subject matter for that night, however, and without rehearsing my spiel in advance it came out stuttered, jumbled, incoherent, and missing pieces. Piper listened patiently and closely to all the random tidbits I spurted out, however, and really worked to connect the dots of what I was trying to say so that she could understand what I was trying to say and respond accordingly. In a world where anyone else would have just nodded and said “Yep” a bunch of times as I went on and on, this was when I started to realize that she was “the one.”

 

After my rant she went on to explain why she adored these comedies so much. She told me she was going through a rough patch a few years ago, and she felt so miserable during this time that films like that were the only reprieve she had from her troubles. She said the laughs they brought her are one of the reasons she made it out of that time with her sanity, and I started thinking maybe I was a little too harsh on her choice of favorite films. She continued, and just like that she started to open up to me. I wanted her to tell me everything, I wanted to say so much, I wanted to be there for her, I wanted to put my arm around her, but instead I just simply let out a bewildered “Wow” every few minutes. I intently listened to every word she said, until suddenly she turned the tables and asked me what my favorite movies of all time were.

 

“Until tonight my top five were, in descending order, Lady Bird (2017), V for Vendetta (2005), The Beaver (2011), Wild (2014), and either The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) or The Aviator (2004). But, after tonight I might have to find a space for Jojo Rabbit (2019).” I responded, trying not to sound too mechanical, or like I had a predetermined list of my top five films of all time ready to recite at any given moment or something.

 

“Wow, look at you! You have it all worked out! I’m really glad you liked the movie we saw tonight so much, I thought it was great too!” she said, and accompanied it with a smile and a stare. I smiled back, and we continued our rousing conversation revolving entirely around the magic of movies. We bonded over our mutual love for Superbad (2007), and I told her some of my go-to personal anecdotes I liked to use to illustrate just how much I loved cinema. I told her about how I asked a bunch of kids in school to punch me as hard as they could in the face the day after I watched Fight Club (1999) for the first time as a sophomore, and how one even obliged. I told her how I couldn’t sleep for two days straight after I watched American History X (1998), and told her that my entire life had been changed by certain films like Moulin Rouge! (2001), Garden State (2004), and The Aviator (2004). Of course, like most, Piper hadn’t heard of many of these films, but she paid close attention and seemed genuinely interested in my stories nonetheless. I got giddy as a school girl when it hit me that if we went steady I’d get to introduce her to every one of these films and experience them all over again for the first time with her. A nice thought, but at this point it still felt like a fantasy. Before long our destination slowly became visible in the hazy distance behind the leagues of falling snowflakes.

 

 

That Special Feeling

Things between Piper and I were going splendidly, and had improved tenfold since the awkward affair that was our meeting before the movie. She was beginning to laugh a lot, and I was beginning to melt. Was this what flirting looked like? Was this an example of “chemistry”? The awkward silences were starting to disappear altogether, and our conversation was beginning to feel almost as natural as when two neurotypicals spoke.

 

Although it’s true Piper was the prettiest girl I’d ever met, that alone was never the sole source of her appeal. There was sort of a magical electricity when we interacted, and small talk with her was unlike small talk I’d experienced with any one else before. But, I also had no friends, had never had a girlfriend, and was freaking autistic to boot, so how the heck would I know what to classify it as? I always wondered, did we have that “spark” that everyone talks about? On top of everything else, she was also the nicest person I’d ever met, and this electric feeling could always just be me misinterpreting her kindness. Her bubblyness, her kindness, how did I know she didn’t act like that with everyone she met by default? Whatever the case, our interactions were undeniably special, but afterwards I always convinced myself it was all in my head. I knew nothing of sparks. We continued to discuss our favorite actors, television shows, and the finer points of Wes Anderson joints until we made our abrupt arrival to our pseudo-Mexican cuisine destination. Walking in, the restaurant was completely vacant apart from two employees near the back that were hanging out and chatting in front of the take-out window. I was thrilled, as having the place to ourselves meant I’d be free to talk to Piper at full volume about any subject that might come up and not have to give any thought to what others might think if they overheard me.

 

 

Live Mas

Approaching the counter, I ordered first, deciding to go with my usual Dr. Pepper, Crunchwrap Supreme with no tomatoes, a beefy cheesy melt, a Doritos Locos Taco Supreme with no tomatoes, and cinnamon twists. Clearly exercising restraint because I was paying, Piper ordered just a Dr. Pepper, Chicken Quesadilla, and nachos with cheese sauce. I considered encouraging her to get more, but decided just to leave it, as I would have done the same thing if she was paying. We got our sodas from the dispenser, and our order was ready before we could even sit down. Tray in hand, we headed to the lobby where we were met with copious amounts of muted gray, teal, purple, and pink. A remnant of a bygone era, the retro striped aesthetic appeared to not have been updated since the dawn of the century. We grabbed a vintage booth in the deserted lobby, and started to dig in. We remained the only customers in the store for the rest of the snow-swept night, with the distant commotion of patrons ordering food from the drive-thru as our only occasional background noise. After eating for a few minutes I set my Crunchwrap down and took a moment to sit back and observe Piper as she gingerly ripped open the paper wrapping of her quesadilla and began to daintily eat it with small, adorable nibbles. I was pleased to see that after all this time she still kept her perfect perfectly short fingernails nice and tidy as well, although this time were painted with a jubilant pastel orange color.

 

 

I couldn’t help but pay very close attention to Piper’s eating habits throughout our meal, as I simply couldn’t tolerate a lover with habits as reprehensible as eating with their mouth open, sucking on their fingers, or making a spectacle out of a burp. I was pleased to find that she was a proper lady throughout, and chewed with an elegant decency that made for an even better show of tact than I had hoped for. I paid equal attention to my own eating as well, knowing how easy it was to let loose an unintentional display of grotesquery while eating something like tacos, even as a seasoned master of etiquette like myself. We continued to discuss our favorite films until we were left with nothing but cinnamon twists, nachos, and two empty cups. Once we got back from the soda fountain with fresh refills, we sat back down and I we decided to share the remaining twists and nachos.

 

 

Promiscuous

I sat back in the booth as Piper grabbed a few cinnamon morsels, and used the brief pause to take a gander out the window and check on the elements. The grayed sky was now completely devoid of color, a pitch panorama smattered throughout with legions of tiny white specks in a flurry that seemed to only have intensified while we dined. The flakes had begun accumulating into an even spread across the ground and pavement, and the only question now was how many inches we’d get before it started to let up. My first date ever had left me positively smitten by all accounts, and without even an ounce of hyperbole the night had already proven to be one of the best in my life. But, we still needed to walk back to our cars and drive home, so it was starting to look like it was time to wrap things up. With my first date ever now practically under my belt with no major mishaps, my confidence level had reached new heights, and with a newfound tenacity I decided I’d take initiative for once and end the night by asking her out on a second date the following week. Little did I know, however, that this simple question would open up a big ol’ bucket of worms the size of which I couldn’t even fathom, and things were about to get a little dicy.

 

In just a moment Piper’s demeanor compltetley shifted and she let out an enormous sigh like she was coming up for air after a five minute free dive. She then muttered under her breath like an angsty teen, “Ugghhh… I don’t know!” And with that, the tone of the night had taken a turn, and she plopped her hands and head face-down onto the table in a blatant display of frustration. The question had triggered something in her, and after a few moments that befuddled me to no end, she slowly raised her head back up. Face red as a beet and sounding utterly defeated, she said faintly, “I don’t know. I’m sorry. You’re really nice, but I can’t get into another relationship right now. I don’t want to start anything.” She told me how she was still young, but had played it fast and loose ever since she was a teenager and had already gone through a strenuous menagerie of relationships in her young life, and gave away far too much of herself in the process. She said she had the body count of a woman twice her age, and nothing meaningful to show for it.

 

Spending years going from shallow womanizer to emotionally abusive man-child to selfish deadbeat dirtbag, she told me how she ended up leaving each mismanaged and ill-conceived relationship more broken and drained than the last. Going into shocking detail, she went on to let out a bumper crop of information and spin me a captivating yet tragic tale full of riveting drama, calamitous naivety, stone-faced betrayal, premature sexual encounters, and calculated deceit. Having been in and out of relationships since high school, she said she finally called it quits just a couple months ago where she finally took a stand against all the B.S. and swore she was done with men for the forceable future. She said, “You seemed really nice so I wanted to come tonight to try it, and I do like you, but I just can’t do it any more. I’m sorry… I can’t go on any more dates with you. Men just want you for your body, and if you don’t put out they do anything they can to get you to. I just need time to be single and heal.”

 

There was a long, tense silence like a strange calm after the explosion of a grenade. The extreme shift in tone was jarring, and I was speechless. Given her gender and level of physical beauty I always knew this was a possibility, but the news of her turning tricks all over town knocked the wind out of me nonetheless. I know I’d always wanted someone to confide in me, but this was like an entire season of Euphoria (2019- ) or something. After everything she revealed, I was mostly just profoundly honored that she chose me to tell it to. She’d clearly been holding it all in for some time, and this was her opportunity to let it all out. We sat there in a harsh silence. I had no idea what to say, but I think just about anything other that what I did say would have been preferable. “I am so sorry. But, actually… I’m saving myself for marriage. I wouldn’t have sex with you if you begged me.” Like the sick and selfish degenerate I was, I saw her vulnerability as nothing but an opportunity, although thankfully that’s not how she took it, and the comment turned out not to be the disaster I thought it would when I heard it come out of my mouth.

 

“Re… really?” she sounded genuinely puzzled, as if I was speaking another language. “You do… You do NOT want to have sex?”

 

“Nope! Not ’till I’m married!” This time I was the one smiling as she stared in disbelief. “Yeah! We could just hang out too, we don’t have to be in a relationship. I could go another few years without poon if I had to.” I held the smile, and after her momentary disbelief she finally responded.

 

“Well goddamn, Mr. Mullarkey, aren’t you full of surprises!” Utterly deflated moments ago, she now sounded curious, and the tone shifted once more.

 

“Haha.” Then, I hit her with the real panty-dropper of a line I hit all the ladies with that I talked to this much. “So… do you want to be friends?”

 

“No sex? No relationship? No foolin’? Well, shit, what a concept… I think I would!” Her frown was turned upside-down and she had her signature smile back once again. She was clearly not as innocent or well put together as she appeared, but somehow my attraction for her did not waver. Piper’s story is a truly tragic example of naivety and the inability to resist natural urges, and I’m afraid it’s a travesty that is all too common among young people today. I started to wonder if Piper’s distaste for sex meant she might be the first girl to see my waiting as something special, and not a con or a cock-tease.

 

The roads were getting slushier and slipperier by the minute, but blizzard be damned we sat there and continued to talk for hours, until the twists were long gone, the nachos were consumed, and we had refilled our sodas once again. She told me more about her rocky relationships, and proceeded to pour out her heart and soul out to me as I listened intently. Although I couldn’t relate to her sexuality, I did know a great deal about regret and living in the past, and I tried to explain why that was to her when it was my turn to share. We talked about every subject that arose just like I’d always dreamt of doing with a girl, and the only reason our gripping discussion had to end was because the workers had to kick us out at midnight when they were closing the restaurant. That night in Taco Bell shattered the facade of how I saw Piper, and showed me that she was just as flawed as me or anyone else. No longer a golden idol to be worshipped, she was merely human, and with that understanding all awkwardness between us evaporated. I was finally ready to take on a genuine relationship with her, even if that was just a friendship to start. The more we talked, the more comfortable I got in front of her, and the less petrified I was of making a mistake or getting called creepy.

 

 

Angel in the Snow

“Ohh!” Piper shouted not long into our walk back Piper as she giddily ran off the sidewalk and trudged through a dense snowdrift and onto the nearby lawn in front of an auto dealer. In another enduring display of her carefree whimsy she stood straight as she reached her arms out and fell backwards, flopping into the thick snow cover with a crunchy thud. She continued to wave her arms and legs side to side as she made a snow angel in the fresh few inches of fresh powder, giggling affably throughout the entire process. As I started to wonder how someone who had had so much filthy sex could retain such an inculpable demeanor, she looked back and motioned for me to come join her. Driving the entire way home in heavily wet and soggy pants wasn’t the most appealing idea, but how could I refuse? Without hesitation I ran over as fast as I could and flopped down beside her, except now I was the one giggling nonsensically. The absurdity of two grown adults making snow angels in front of a used car dealership past 12 in the morning was not lost on me, but it was of no consequence because I had never felt so loose and untethered with someone before.

 

We both wagged our limbs around vigorously for a while until we got winded, trying to leave the best angel imprint. As we laid there without a care in the world, I looked over to Piper and felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude to God, the world, destiny, or whatever it was that, against all odds, made it possible that I could be there in that moment with that girl on that night. None of it felt real, as I was starting to genuinely believe I might never get to experience something like this. Just as I started to feel the tears come, my awe-struck gaze was interrupted by Piper turning her head to look back at me. Her eyes met mine for an instant before I shifted focus and tried to make it look like I was looking at the sky for stars. She punched my arm lightly, and said “Thanks for tonight, Mullarkey. I had a good time” with one of those smiles that only she could smile.

 

 

“No, thank you!“, I replied, smiling that rehearsed, disingenuous type of smile that I was known to smile. From school to jobs, and from movies to books, we talked about all manner of things on our way back to the theater that night, and I nothing could have made me happier.

 

When we got back to the parking lot she asked for my phone, and added herself as a contact. Then she gave me her phone, and told me to add myself as a contact in hers. She used an Android, but I decided not to hold it against her. She looked back at me as she got into her car, winked at me, and ended with. “Thanks again, Mullarkey. See you around?”

 

I smiled and nodded, “See you around.” She still didn’t answer my question about a second date the following week, and a wink was far from a kiss, cuddle, or hand-holding, but I was over the moon all the same. After this brief moment of pure bliss, I made it to my car, and then it hit me: The evidence had piled up, and it was now undeniable. Between her cantor, tone, demeanor, and word choice, I could no longer deny the fact that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Piper was starting to like me. Like-like even. As someone whose biggest fear was once Piper going out of my life entirely, you’d imagine this revelation would really butter my biscuits, and I would have thought the same. What it actually did, however, was flip what I feared most on its head and fill me with a new type of terror I’d never before known: the fear of what I might do to her.

 

Before Piper liked me my role was child’s play, as it was entirely one-sided. I could speak and live carefree, because no matter what I did or said, it never really had much of an effect on her. The fact that she was starting to have feelings for me complicated this, as what I did and said now mattered to her. This meant I had the power to do something I couldn’t have done previously: make her miserable. Just a few wrong words could lead to devastation, and I shuttered at the thought of causing her heartache. It also meant that the thought of being with her was no longer pure fantasy, it was now within the realm of plausibility. I’d never been in a relationship and I knew nothing about nurturing or maintaining them, so how could I suddenly navigate one without calamity? How could I guarantee myself that I wouldn’t break her heart? The gift of Piper’s admiration was all I wanted, but it was also one I wasn’t so sure I was capable of handling. The thought of what I could do to Piper absolutely petrified me, and it was all I could think about on my drive home.

 

 

Second Date: Silver Lining

With a woman in my life at long last, I woke up the following morning with a pep in my step, a little hope on my horizon, and a whole new perspective on life. I pulled up her contact page on my phone, smiled, and just stared. We weren’t exactly going steady, but compared to what I was used to we might as well have been freaking married. I had no idea, however, that that optimistic vigor would be put to the test sooner than later. It was my last day off before I had to go back to work, and I tried to play video games and chill, but even browsing the online store couldn’t get my mind away from trying to decide how long I should wait before asking Piper out on a second date. The next day was clearly too soon, but when wasn’t? What was the etiquette? Or, should I drop her a quick message the day after our first date letting her know I had a great time with her? I laid on my couch, clutching my phone as I looked at her name in my contacts and went back and fourth the entire morning about how long I should wait before contacting her again. I spent the entire morning on edge and unable to do anything but frantically flip through my socials, trying to get my mind off of Piper. My doom scrolling got cut short around lunch time, however, when I received a phone call from my mom, whether I was ready for it or not.

 

 

My Pip

I mentioned in the previous post how I bounced back after my suicide attempt and managed to start living with a new “glass is half full” type of mindset. That may have been true eventually, but the part I neglected to mention was that it didn’t come without some heavy-handed altruistic bribery on my mother’s part. It’s true I swore I’d never contemplate suicide again after that horrid night, but it’s also true that when I got back from the mental asylum I was almost more broken than when I went in. I thought I had legitimately fallen in love with the girl I met there, and when she turned out to be a full-fledged bull dyke my world was uprooted while it was supposed to be getting healed. Not long after returning to high school I once again started to fall into a deep depression. Not suicidal, just regular depression. I can’t even imagine how frustrated my mother must have been after medication, therapy, herself, and countless other tonics all failed to raise the spirits of her ungrateful, inconsolably discontented son. She was undoubtably getting hopeless, and when she had nowhere else to go for help she turned to the only thing she knew would guarantee happiness. She told me to get in the car because we were heading to the humane society, and she was going to let me pick out a dog. At the time my family had a Yellow Lab and a Dachshund, and although we’d had many dogs over the years, this was the first one that I would get to call my very own.

 

 

For better and for worse, I went home with the first and only dog we met with that day: a portly round one year-old Boston Terrier puppy named “Boots.” After promptly changing her name to a much more fitting and adorable “Pip”, I finally found reason to smile, along with a reignited passion for living. Over the years Pip had seen me through graduation, my entire long-winded college career, and helped me get through countless struggles and tribulations in the 11 years I had her. She was over the weight limit to be able to live with me when I moved to my apartment, but I still visited her at my parent’s several times every week. For 11 years, Pip was the love of my life, my reason, and my everything.

 

 

The Bad Call

Intently grazing through social media without a care in the world other than when I’d get to see or talk to Piper again, I got the call from my mother that would threaten to send my impeccable new life into shambles. With an uneasy shakiness in her voice she told me that Pip wasn’t acting right, and it was time to come home and see my baby one last time. With a 12-year-old medium sized dog I knew this was coming at some point, but that didn’t make dealing with it any easier. I haphazardly packed up Jack and some clothes, and got to my parent’s place in record time.

 

The spunky little Boston Terrier puppy I picked out senior year had grown old and decrepit, and between her front left leg failing, breathing problems, losing the ability to jump onto furniture, and stopping eating altogether, it was clear that her time had come. 12 years was about average for the lifespan of a dog her size, but even a hundred years wouldn’t have given me enough time with my baby girl, her smushed little face, and her swirly pig tail. I went straight to the kitchen where I knew I’d find her lying in her usual spot. Rushing to the giant fluffy dog bed in the middle of the hardwood floor, I laid down beside her. After helping me endure crisis after crisis in my adolescence, now it was my turn to be there for her. I wrapped my arms around her, and cuddled with her one last time as we fell asleep together for the last night. I was absolutely devastated by this loss, but oddly enough I didn’t shed any tears about it. As a highly sensitive man deeply in tune with his emotions I wanted so bad to cry the pain away, but regardless of how hard I tried, for some reason I just could not get myself to cry.

 

My mother woke me up the following morning, and let me know that Pip had just stopped drinking water as well. She touched my hand, let out a gentle sigh, looked tenderly into my eyes and told me it was time. Before I forgot I called my manager and told her I wouldn’t make it into work that day, or the next couple that I was scheduled. This wasn’t the first time I called in multiple days to allow me ample time to mourn a loss, and I think she could sense the graveness of the situation by my tone.

 

I wrapped Pip up in her favorite polka dot blanket and sat with her on my lap in the passenger seat of my mom’s SUV as we headed to the vet. I propped her up in my arms as we took a minor detour past the lake we used to take her to so she could see the seagulls she loved to pester over the years one more time, and the shore that she used to frolic around in. She faded away before my eyes at the veterinarian clinic that day, laying on top of her blanket as we sat with her and waited excruciatingly for the injection to take effect. I sang some of the little songs I had for her as I watched the life drain from her eyes. I’ve always had special songs that I sing for my animals, but only when I was alone with them. My mother and the vet techs were the first humans to hear my serenade, as I prioritized Pip’s comfort over my embarrassment. As much as I kept trying to cry, my eyes remained dry through the entire thing.

 

When we got back I promptly went upstairs and collapsed onto my bed with Jack, and fell asleep as I pet him in a sobering silence. Pip’s legacy was carried on, as my mother had gotten two Dachshund puppies almost a year earlier named Oliver (Ollie) and Herbert (Herbie). They were Pip’s younger brothers, and although they only knew her for a short time, she took them on as her understudies and instilled as many lessons about being a dog in our house that she could. How to bark incessantly at passing cars, find and remove the squeaker from toys, get the most treats out of the wobbler, and get bully sticks nice and gooey being some of the most vital. Tragically, she left us before she could get through to them how to go poop and potty outside.

 

After losing Pip the days that followed seemed to blur together as I once again started spending all day and night in bed, sleeping as much as possible. The wiener boys took turns sleeping in my bed with me as well, and aided my grieving process as much as anything could. My mother brought me food, water, and checked on me regularly. I think she was getting progressively more worried I might be falling into another gaping pit of misery like the last time she saw me sleep my life away 12 years earlier, but decided just to let my grieving run its course. I was indeed acutely morose, but in a much different, less hopeless sort of way. I never gave up, and I never lost sight of my light at the end of my tunnel, Piper Jones.

 

I wallowed in my sorrows and worked my way diligently through the nine stages of grief, looking ahead to the day I found closure and liberation from this melancholy. I needed to regain a certain stability and get my ducks in a row before I was ready to ask Piper on another date, but something I never even considered was the possibility of her asking me.

 

 

The Good Call

After hibernating in my childhood bed for a few days, alternating between sleeping with my cat and sleeping with one or both of my mom’s Dachshunds, I finally headed back to my apartment. I never shed a single tear for my little Pipsqueak throughout this time, and I was starting to think there might be something wrong with me. Not long after I had gotten back and settled in, the unthinkable happened when Piper called me out of the blue and asked if I wanted to hang out again that weekend. This time she told me where we would be going, saying she wanted to take a step up from Taco Bell and hit up Applebee’s, and then we’d see where the night took us from there. Applebee’s, of course, being about as fancy as it got for two rural small town bumpkins like ourselves without having to drive to a bigger city.

 

 

The only problem, she said, was that her mom needed the car that weekend and she wouldn’t have a vehicle available and needed a ride. Still shocked by the fact that she was contacting me at all, I gleefully agreed to everything she said. It wasn’t until I hung up that I realized I might not yet be mentally prepared for such an endeavor. The last thing I wanted was to bum Piper out as I harped on about my dead dog all night, but I decided to go and just try and act like nothing happened. I was done trauma dumping my baggage onto girls just as I was getting to know them like in my instant messenger days, and I figured merely being with her would be enough to raise my spirits and take my mind off of Pip for a night. I didn’t care if I had to break the law, kill someone, or bend all of space and time to make another date happen, it was going to happened one way or another.

 

 

Eatin’ Good in the Neighborhood

I lied low and grieved for another few days holed up in my apartment with Jack, and before you can say the words “making a scene” it was already time to go and pick Piper up. I made sure to put Pip far out of my mind for the night, and was ready to feel like me and her were the only people in the world again. I picked her up at her parent’s place, and although it was a bit chilly, this time the ground was bare and there wasn’t a snowflake in sight. She walked up and climbed into my Chevy, radiant as a laser beam and filled to the brim with confidence, greeting me with a bright smile and a firm but flirty “Hey there, Mullarkey. I hope you weren’t waiting long.” Boy oh boy, was she a sight for sore eyes. 

 

That seductive smile, those intoxicating eyes staring straight into my soul, and all I could muster for a reply was, “Hey. No, no, I just pulled into your driveway a minute ago. Don’t worry about it.” We didn’t say much else beyond the usual pleasantries after that, and within ten minutes we were pulling into our local Applebee’s. Heading in and making sure to open all doors for my madam, we made our way to the podium near the entrance where we were greeted by an overly enthusiastic young hostess. The place was packed, and she made it her mission to find us a booth. Before we could even sit down at the benches and wait she called us over, and lead us to a booth right in middle of the restaurant, surrounded by dozens of strangers seated at various other booths and tables.

 

I dreaded how bad my paranoia might react to such an environment, but I did my best to focus entirely on Piper, and frequently reminded myself that she was all that mattered. Once we had scooted in on either side, our exuberant host handed us menus and let us know our server would be with us soon. Piper headed for the appetizer section with, “Ooo, I heard their pretzel stick appetizer is great.” I took a cursory glance through the first page and likewise landed on appetizers. I scanned the options until I made it to the Buffalo Cauliflower Wings when suddenly an image, a memory instantly popped into my head, clear as day. 

 

The entree transported me to a decade earlier, and surged a forgotten memory back into my conscious of when Pip was a young pup and we were still getting to know her quirks. To put it bluntly, Pip farted, and she farted a lot. I always thought it was hysterical anytime she let one rip, and that was quite often. She’d toot during family prayers, toot during quiet moments in movies, toot while we were in the middle of a conversation, and just generally tooted up a storm. One day my parents were having guests over, and there was a giant charcuterie board with a huge spread of vegetables, dips, and all manner of other things on the table. Long story short, that was the day I found out Pip got excessive flatulence shortly after we gave her cauliflower. From then on my mom did everything in her power to keep cauliflowers from reaching Pip’s mouth, and I did everything I could to sneak them to her and then revel in the aftermath.

 

 

I had rehashed a plethora of memories with my Pippers over the last week, both the good and the bad, but for some reason this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After the flashback tears started coming, and they didn’t stop coming until I was sitting there with the girl I wanted to fall in love with, ugly crying like a baby in the middle of a huge, crowded restaurant. Everything I tried to do and think of to reduce the waterworks failed miserably, and with that mention of farts the floodgates opened at last and I started to flat-out bawl like a banshee.

 

I was already mortified by the scene I had created, and could hardly see Piper through the flow. But, once she came into focus again it was clear she wasn’t messing around, and did not miss a beat in handling the situation. Without a word to me Piper dropped the menu, scooted out of the booth, and walked back to the podium where she spoke with the hyper hostess again. I didn’t piece it together until I had finally calmed down, but she was letting her know that something came up and we wouldn’t be dining there after all. She apologized profusely for the trouble, and then headed back in my direction with a confident yet urgent strut like she was on a mission from God.

 

The embarrassment felt like I was naked in front of a the entire town, and I simply could not stop crying. On the inside I was having a full-fledged panic attack over making such a spectacle of myself, and I started to obsess over all the things each of the oglers might have been thinking about me. Just as I was about to internally combust Piper had come back to the booth, and was standing directly in front of my seat. She reached out the palm of her hand, and there was no smile or stare to be found. Instead, I was greeted with the most tender and caring display of empathy as she flicked her chin up, motioning to the front door and said, “Come on babe, let’s get outta here. Gimme those keys!”

 

 

Babe

“Babe.” She said “babe.” Hearing someone call me that again was as jarring as it was disconcerting. It was the first time anyone had called me that in years, and I couldn’t help but immediately be taken aback by hearing it. It was the same godforsaken pet name every heartless two-bit whore, hussy, and half-witted hustling con-artist used to refer to me as back in the days when I was trying to hack it on Tinder and Facebook Dating. Over the course of the two years I was active on the platforms I matched with more than a dozen women, every one of them with mind-numbingly gorgeous profile pictures. Not long after introducing themselves they’d start drawing me in by talking to me like they wanted me seven ways to Sunday. With them fawning all over me, basically telling me they wanted to have my babies, they made me believe I had found true love. When you want something so mind-numbingly bad, having just a taste of it can be enough to make you lose your goddang mind and make you buy into anything. They do whatever they can to get you wanting them so bad you can’t stand it, and that’s when they strike. They offer you a “service” as an excuse to give them money, and then they tell you they can’t even continue to talk with you anymore unless you give them money for their “service.” 

 

Some of them claimed to be masseuses and said they wanted me to send them some money on Paypal to come to my apartment and give me a “massage.” Some tried to lure me into their private webcam shows to tip them exorbitant amounts of money. Some just straight up said they wanted me to meet them at their car at an undisclosed location where I’d have sex with them for cash. One sent me nudes on Snapchat and said she wouldn’t talk to me anymore unless I subscribed to her OnlyFans account. One hardly spoke proper english and told me she needed me to give her money to send back to her poor and starving family in China. For two years, every single match I had ended in calamity, and every one of them called me “Babe.”

 

In hindsight I can see how pathetic it is that I got duped that many times consecutively, but every time you get talking to a new one it feels like they’re going to be different. Every one of them were heartless vultures preying on my loneliness and exploiting my insatiable desire for the female body, and are the reason I gave up online dating forever. The toll getting crushed time after time after time took on me was staggering, but even after everything I can’t really blame them. Take a look anywhere in the world, find a random guy. More often than not, they’re complete shite. 

 

I thought I never wanted to hear that word again, but the way she articulated it was almost angelic, and nothing short of magical. The way it rolled off her lips made it feel like a completely different word and made my insides tingle. Piper’s frank and authentic use of this moniker was thoroughly life-affirming, a gesture unlike anything anyone else had ever done for me in earnest, and it made me want to start crying happy tears rather than the sad ones I’d been marinating myself in in that booth. I would have followed her to hell and back, and I wanted to listen to her to call me “babe” forevermore.

 

 

The Drive

Suddenly, Piper was the only other person in the room once again. She was my refuge, my purpose, and my Santa Fe. Without sparing another single second I plopped the keys down onto her hand, and she grabbed me with her other arm and helped pull me out of the booth. Flying through the restaurant and into the parking lot, she climbed into the driver’s side and I jumped into the passenger’s. “It’s okay babe. We’re gonna get you home and then you can tell me all about it, yeah?” It was clear she understood I was going through something, and didn’t want to start discussing it until we were someplace befitting of such a discussion. 

 

“Yeah”, I replied with a whimper and a nod. By now my weeping had subsided to a sniffle, and for the moment Pip was far from my mind. I gave her directions, and watched her as she drove. I simply could not look away. Everything I wanted in life was sitting before me, and I had never been so content. “Otherworldly” just didn’t do the feeling justice. I couldn’t help but acknowledge the thought that my dad would have killed me if he knew I was letting someone else drive my car, but on second thought I realized I couldn’t care less, I was in love.

 

By the time we hit the highway I had snapped out of it, and realized what time it was: time to share art. I frantically grabbed the AUX cord for my car’s speakers and assumed the role of DJ, flipping through my playlists, looking for the perfect tunes to accompany the rest of our drive to my apartment. DJ was the role I always played anytime I went anywhere with my mother, and sharing new songs with her was one of my favorite things to do. My initial thought was to play all my Eminem deep cuts for her as I went into great detail of what each one meant to me, but ultimately decided there was probably a better place and time for such an occasion. Instead, I played her all my favorites that I didn’t think she’d be familiar with, from artists like Lukas Graham, Matisyahu, Kesha, Oliver Tree, Ava Max, and Catch 22. As the music played my mind began to drift, and I couldn’t help but ponder things like if her nose ring would get in the way if we made out, and if I would know at last what cuddling was like before the night was through. As we got closer I prayed to God whatever happened that night that, no matter what, that I would not get a boner.