Chicken Pot Pie Guy

                Sorry I didn’t write for the last couple days, I have not felt the best, and I have vowed to take care of myself a little better this year when I need some down-time.  I did write a gem for you today however.  Here you go!

Once I was asked out on a dinner date by a fellow who by all accounts was totally different than most guys I dated.  You ask, “Lori, what was your type?”  Well, I shall sum that up as briefly as possible.  My type has generally been anyone that is artsy, musiciany, open-mindedish and such.  (Any of those CAN and will be words.)  As for looks, that has really been irrelevant…mind connections have been the biggest factor in my attraction to people always.  So anyway, back to the fellow at hand.  This guy was an investment banker.  He was wearing a suit when I met him.  He had that air of uptightedness that was slightly uncomfortable for everyone around him.  He was like a rubber band that was pulled way too tight.  You just had that underlying sense that at any given point he was gonna snapperoo, and go cookoo. 

                Right now, you are probably wondering to yourself,”WHY did you go out on a date with this fellow, Lori?”  I figured that you would ask.  Well, at this time in my life, quite frankly, the other gentlemen suitors I had dated just hadn’t panned out.  I really wanted to be in a relationship at that juncture of my life.  I thought I still had a chance of having children.  The biological clock was “a tickin’ away” and I thought, why not step out of your comfort zone and try a date with someone different.  Opposites attract, right?  Oh yeah, and this guy was also disturbingly persistent. 

                Let’s cut to the chase.  Said fellow asked me out to and I quote “A really nice dinner…you deserve that.”  So, we agreed on the date and time.  I always worked Saturdays, so I dressed to the nines for work.  I had a black skirt on, heels and a nice sweater.  Makeup was done to perfection, and I was ready to go.  He offered to pick me up from work, and I thought that would be lovely.  At the time indicated I left work, and met him outside.  He opened the car door for me, so we were off to a somewhat good start.  I sat down in the car and he said, “Where do you want to go eat?”  Immediately, I was sort of let down.  He told me he was taking me to a REALLY NICE DINNER.  Those generally require reservations…so my hopes were suddenly dashed.  I looked at him and said, “I thought you had this planned out?  I can certainly pick something, but what did you have in mind?”  Right now friends, I want you to activate your imaginations…the next line I want you to say in your best ‘voice’ imitating Ray the Menard’s guy.  (If you don’t know who that is, Google it and watch a video, please.  You will never be the same.)  Also adding a touch of sleazy door to door salesman would add another layer of texture to this next line.  Alright now apply your skills…wait for it….”I am in the mood for CHICKEN POT PIE!!!!!”   (He truly said it in the voice of a game show host.)

                The next sequence of events were from ME…*crickets chirping…*tumbleweeds rolling by*…*slight whistling wind*…OUTBURST of LAUGHTER…I thought this guy was surprisingly HILARIOUS!!  It was quite refreshing.  How neat. 

                “I am NOT joking, “he said.  “I really want chicken pot pie, and the only place that I know of that has it is KFC.”  Now I repeat the above succession of events.  …*crickets chirping…*tumbleweeds rolling by*…*slight whistling wind* this time with no laughter.  I felt a throbbing vein in the side of my temple.  Normally back at this time in my life, I didn’t speak up too much about my opinions.  In fact, I was used to bad dates…however telling me you are taking me to a NICE DINNER and taking me to KFC are two different things.  I looked at him and said.  “NOPE.  No KFC.  I am all dressed up and I am not going to go to KFC and slather grease on my face wearing nice clothes.  We are going someplace decent at the very least, and I will let you pick where that might be, but it is not going to be fast food.”  Alright, I know that might have sounded a little bit mean…but at this point I was thinking really, dude.  You are a haughty taughty suit guy and you wanted me to get all decked out to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken?  I had had better dinner dates in college.  (I.e. one of several guys I screwed up with.)  So, he said “Let’s go to the Prime and Wine.  So we left.  There was little or no conversation in the car on the way there.  We went in, sat down, ordered our food and things seemed more pleasant.  Until I hear what sounds like the dark rumbling of Satan coming from his side of the table.

                He is squirming uncomfortably in his chair, and springs up and leaves.  No explanation.  He is gone ten minutes…fifteen minutes…our food arrives…twenty minutes…I begin eating.  Pretty sure I was ditched.  Thirty minutes pass and I am still at the table, almost done eating my food.  Forty minutes and I am just getting my things together and tell the waitress to bring the bill and he comes back.  He is white as a ghost and clammy looking, kind of imagine a jar of pickled albino salamanders. He sort of looked like refrigerated paste.  He said, I am going to have them box up the food and pay the bill then we can go.  In my head I am thinking “Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay….what the heck is going on here?”  We leave, get in the car and he turns the opposite direction to take me back to work.  I say “What are you doing, are you going to take me back?”  Gleefully he exclaims “No dinner date is complete without a drive around Clear Lake.”  Sweet Jesus save me now.  I reluctantly agreed because we were already headed that way.  It is a ten mile drive to Clear Lake, and the drive AROUND the lake itself probably takes a half hour.  I figured I could entertain this notion of his and it wouldn’t be God awful anyway.  I was once again SO wrong.  As we are about ¾ of the way to Clear Lake itself, I begin hearing the sound of what I liken to be a large demon drowning in tar pits.  It is screeching, bubbling, gurgling and crying out for Beelzebub.  I look over at my date and see that he has beads of sweat on his upper lip and forehead.  He said, “Hey, I am going to stop at Kum & Go quick.”  Oh lord…I figured it out.  He has the Hershey squirts, the scoots, the shits and basically is getting the two minute warning!  Now the incident at the restaurant makes sense!!  Holy crap!!  Literally.  So he stops, and this time is in the bathroom at the gas station for twenty minutes.

                He enters the car and we get about a mile down the road.  Once again the mischievous intestinal sprite rears its ugly head and SCREAMS.   Yet again the sound of the babbling brook of diarrhea undulating through his large intestine makes its presence known.  He said “I need to stop at Casey’s quick.”  This time he is gone a half hour in the gas station bathroom.  Mind you, this entire time he has not acknowledged that this is even HAPPENING.  He is trying to play it off like he is okay.  Never once is he mentioning that he is potentially dying from Ebola. The more I sit and wait the more nervous I become that he has the flu.  I am petrified that I am going to get whatever ass destruction virus that HE has simply by being in his presence.  When he comes back to the car I ask if he is feeling alright, and he said “Oh yeah, I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me.”  “Can you take me back to my car please?” I ask.  “OH we still need to drive around the lake!” he replies.  I am going to end this here, as well I am certain you can imagine the rest of the events.  Three more bathroom stops before I got back to Mason City and the LONGEST time taken to drive around the lake EVER.

 I never went out with him again, just so you know.  However, several years later I saw him working at Hy-Vee bagging groceries.  No lie.  He said to me, “Are you still working at Vision World?”  “Yep, I sure am.” I say.  He laughs at me “Wow…you are going to be a lifer, thought you had some aspirations!”  …*crickets chirping…*tumbleweeds rolling by*…*slight whistling wind* “Dude, just you REALLY just say that?  You are bagging my groceries now.”  I say as I walk away.  I really wish I would have reminded him that he was my grossest date EVER.  I forever will have the memory of his murmuring colon in my head…literally sounds that I cannot forget. 

Thank you for enjoying my story about “POT PIE GUY.”  I hope you savored it as much as I enjoyed the real deal.  Hugs and such!  ~L