Bob the Knight, part 1

I'm in the middle of watching The Real Housewives of Orange County Season 3 (well, I WAS watching a re-run of CHiPS, but Brooke changed the channel and the last time we fought over the remote, she kicked my ass. Because she's a HAIR PULLER, plus the knitting needles hurt a lot when jabbed into your neck) when Bob calls me back. I should probably back up a bit.

After that fiasco last week with Alvin and the medieval restaurant burning down, I was rescued from burning wreckage and unsound infrastructure by Bob, one of the knights that worked at the restaurant. Now, TECHNICALLY, because the restaurant/horse stalls burnt down, Bob is now unemployed, which is usually on my list of dating Hell No's, but I feel like Bob saving my life should count for something. So I accepted his woo-age in a moment of weakness, quite literally actually, as I was lying down on the ground between some goblets, and a still-smoking candelabra, watching hot firemen put out the blaze while horses galloped around. It was actually kind of romantic.

So it turns out that Bob is an actor, not a knight as I originally thought, and as he's looking for other employment, he wanted to take me out on a date. As long as he can still pay for food, and doesn't sew me a goddamn dress to wear while I eat aforementioned food, I'm good.

But Bob, it turns out, is really bad about keeping his cell phone on him. Or near him. Or on, for that matter. Or charged. So we've been playing phone tag for a while now, and every time I'm tempted to blow him off he calls back after like three days and says something sweet and totally explains about how he dropped his cell phone into his car engine while he was performing his own oil change, and then I'm kind of forced to think about how nice it would be if I had a guy around to change my oil too, so all is forgiven.

So anyways, Bob calls back, and after staring in utter confusion at my cell phone for like, three rings, I pick up, surely expecting it to be someone else. But it's Bob, he's really sorry, he lost his cell phone on the train and has spent the last week tracking it down, isn't it a miracle that he just got it back and would I like to do dinner and a show with him?

I say sure, and he asks if I'm free tonight. I say yes, and Brooke (who's listening on my shoulder to our cell phone conversation, as usual) whips her head around at me and glares. And as usual, I ignore her. I've just finished making plans to meet him at a theater later that night as Brooke has resorted to waving her arms in some sort of erratic fashion that makes me think she's having an asthma attack, so finally I hang up and ask her in my most polite, indoor, respectful of roommate voice just what the fuck is wrong with her.

Her eyes are wide with terror, and I'm beginning to think maybe she's having another episode about the bugs in our apartment, but instead she says, "You can't tell him you're free tonight!"

When I ask why not, her face gets this weird shade of red and purple (that's maroon, right?) and she practically screams, "BECAUSE YOU'RE FREE TONIGHT!"

Ah.

Then she goes on to explain that when a girl is free for the evening, she can't actually tell a guy she's free, because then it makes her look desperate or needy. I'm still confused.

"You need to look busy, Jody," Brooke says. "You have to be unobtainable, hard-to-reach, and you should never, under any circumstances, accept a date on-" (here her voice got all hushed, like that little kid in The Sixth Sense) "-THE SAME DAY."

Um. Right. I roll my eyes and head to Brooke's room to try on clothes, and I can hear her yelling from the living room, "YOU'LL DIE ALONE!"