the coffee shop guy date

So Alex* asked me out last Friday, Alex being that guy at that coffee shop who never charges me for my drinks, which is weird. I mean, you think he'd notice by now that he forgets to ring me up every damn time, right?

Anyways, I'm ordering my usual cheese plate/roast beef sandwich/fruit cup/chocolate muffin/tall mocha with extra whipped cream mid-afternoon snack, and Alex as usual has it ready to go when I walk in, although lately he's been handing it to me in a trash bag, something about how he doesn't want to get in trouble with "upper-management." Whatever the hell that means.

As he's handing me my tall mocha with extra whipped cream and my garbage bag of food, our eyes kind of lock and he does this little cute grin thing that makes my heart skip a beat, although it might have just been the anticipatory rush my heart gets when it sees caffeine. At any rate, as I smile back, just thinking about all that whipped cream clogging my arteries, he says, "Do you like to eat with your bare hands?" and I swear to God, in that second, it was like Alex was put on this earth just so I could be insanely attracted to him for like four minutes.

In my utter glee to have someone besides me who thinks utensils are totally pointless, I excitedly slosh some of my tall mocha with extra whipped cream on a passing customer, and amidst the confusion Alex takes the opportunity to ask my dress size. I assume it's just his way of hitting on me more.

Alex then explains that he'd like to take me to this special place that's a little like dinner theater, but with no utensils and horses and stuff. I didn't really get the full story because the person next to me was whining about being burnt with coffee but Alex told me he'd make sure I was wearing something special when he came by on Tuesday night to pick me up, because apparently this is a fancy place. With horses. And no utensils. Could such awesomness truly exist in a world?

And even though Brooke warned me not to do this anymore, I accepted the date and gave him my phone number and address. And then I waited as Alex made me another drink, to make up for the one I sloshed.

So Tuesday rolls around and Brooke's all pissed because yet another guy knows where we live, not like it's a big deal because we both know Alex, or rather, Alex knows us. When he showed up, it was actually kind of cute, he brought me a tall mocha with extra whipped cream, and a one shot, caramel sauce on top and bottom, no whipped cream, light on the ice, with 7 1/2 pumps of peppermint syrup Vente iced Mocha for Brooke, just the way she likes it. She was won over instantly.

Then he presented my dress.

Apparently, when he'd wanted to know my dress size, it was because somewhere out in the universe was a forest green, corseted peasant dress that looked a bedazzler machine had thrown up on it. It even had the puffy sleeve thing going on, which kind of made me think of Brian Boitano's outfits when he played the elf in the Snoopy Ice Christmas Special that my mom used to play on the VCR when I was little while she was drinking.

So I'm kind of looking doubtfully at it and Brooke looks over at me to check my reaction, because I thought what I was wearing (jeans and a clean t-shirt with mostly clean socks) was more than enough effort for a fancy dinner with no utensils and horses.

And Alex kind of presents it to me in a way that makes me think he's really proud of it, which is about the time a horrible thought occurs to me.

"Alan," I say, because he's not wearing his name badge, "did you MAKE this?"

And he's all, "Of course. I spent all weekend making it just for you."

And Brooke and I just look at each other. And I grab the goddamn puffy Brian Boitano dress and head into the bathroom to change.

Two hours later:

I have never seen so much chicken in my life. And it's all over my fingers! And my face! And since it's supposed to be during the middle ages, I don't have a napkin any more than I have utensils, but I DO have a peasant dress. I try to hide the chicken parts that I wipe off my fingers in between the intricate beading on my corset.

Three hours later:

Okay. This was totally not my fault.

Alex is a swell guy, yes, and he's one hell of a coffee maker or whatever the hell that term is (banister? bar code? burrito? Whatever) but a dress maker he is NOT. As evidenced by the fact that my dress was way too long for me, and the only thing I could wear for shoes instead of my usual sneakers was a pair of Brooke's Shoes of Insane Discomfort that are also three sizes too small. So it's not exactly my fault that when I got up to head to the bathroom to wash the chicken off my dress, I ended up tripping into a table.

And it's definitely not my fault that the table I ended up tripping and falling into and slightly tipping over had lit candles on it, because apparently there were no fucking light bulbs in the middle ages either. Or fire extinguishers, for that matter.

And it's really, REALLY not my fault that everyone else was also wearing some version or another of velvet drapes. And that when they panicked after their costumes caught on fire, they'd tip over more tables with more candles.

On the plus side, only one horse died in the fire, and he was really old and the restaurant was trying to think of a way to give him a graceful exit anyways. So said the knight who carried me out of the burning wreckage and then asked me out on a date.

But the worst part of all of this is, now Alex is remembering to charge me for my tall mochas with extra whipped cream. Fuck.




* TOTALLY his real name. I just think it's cool to put those little stars after someone's name.