Date 5 - A Friendly Pho



Not my style.

I woke up early, put on makeup and made myself breakfast before 9am on a Sunday. What have I become?

Constantine sent me an email at the exact moment that I sent him a text. I was confirming our date, he was postponing it. Too ill. He apologized eloquently and seemed to genuinely want to see me some other time, so my go-to of “Boo, you whore” wasn’t a good reply option. I told him to rest up and feel better. Then I put my pajamas back on and sat down to blog and try not to let myself slip into a funk.

I was failing when I received a text from my lovely friend Dick McStuffinsnatch* offering to take me out for phō. I did put pants on, because restaurants appreciate that. And I changed shirts - not because I was in the throes of some girly wardrobe crisis but rather because Vietnamese soup plus white shirts always equals mess.

Dick arrived at my door and knocked, which was odd. When I yelled for him to come in, he opened the door and did not ask "What are you wearing?" or shout, “Show me your shitter!” which was frankly disconcerting. I later learned that this was because Date Dick is classier than Regular Dick. In respect for our date he also put on a shirt that did not have holes in it. Of course, it had holes for his head and arms to go through, that’s how he was able to put it on. What I meant was that there were no extraneous holes, silly.

My favourite Vietnamese restaurant is closed on Sundays, so I knew that was not a viable option. Dick drove us to my second favourite Vietnamese restaurant. It was also closed. So we then went to one that Dick chose, and it was open. Yay!

I was still in a bit of a funk, so I was probably not the best date. Dick was on his best behaviour and either is a very confident date, an astute and kind friend or just really comfortable around me. All good things. We cracked an impressive number of jokes, ate good food and talked about Dick’s upcoming vacation.

Also not my style

Dick paid for our phō and we stopped at a shopping mall on the way home to buy him an essential hoodie for his travels. I am not really a fan of malls or shopping, but we did well. We went straight to the interactive mall map and asked it where to go. It told us to turn around, because the store we were looking for was actually right behind us. I cackled. After looking around, Dick decided that store did not stock the droids we were looking for, and we returned to the mall oracle to ask it to find us another store. It did so, and I was kind of disappointed when I turned around and the store we left hadn’t been swapped out with the one we were looking for. Sci-fi though shopping centres have become, we’re not quite there yet.

We followed the instructions and found another store that had what Dick wanted. I chittered away with one of the sales experience associates (or whatever they call retail minions nowadays) while Dick found the exactly perfect hoodie. At the checkout, they asked if he wanted a paper receipt or if they could email him one. He chose paper, I snickered and looked around to see if there were any children or uptight-seeming persons around. There was one lady who looked like an anthropomorphized, ill-tempered, albino prune, but she quickly lost interest in the selection of socks and walked away. I then told the sales receivable administrator (clerk) that Dick only chose a paper receipt because he was too embarrassed to tell her his email address was dick4u69@hotmail.com. (I mean, who uses Hotmail anymore?) Which I suppose wasn’t very date-like, but I thought it was funny.


Clerks just wanna have fun

Dick dropped me off, and I earnestly thanked him for a lovely date. It had totally turned my day around. He made sure I got into my apartment ok before driving away. As my friend, he has always done that, but as a date it was much appreciated.

 

*Editor’s note: never offer to let people choose their own pseudonyms.