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Back in the days when I was still single and before I met the woman of my dreams, I was signed up with a lot of dating agencies and went out on a lot of dates that didn't work out. After a particularly disastrous date in which I had my face pushed forcibly (she had issues with violence) down into a full bowl of luke-warm Minestrone (at least she had the decency to wait for it to cool down), I went back to the woman who ran the agency and said, Haven't you got somebody on your books who doesn't care about how I look or what job I have and has a nice pair of big boobs?' So she checked on her computer and said, Actually, we do have one, but unfortunately, it's you.' Without another word, I turned on my heels and went out the door. Needless to say, I was too indignant to avail myself of their services again.

Another time I went out on a blind date and had a terrible time. I wasn't really that taken with my date, a stock market analyst, who actually bore an uncanny resemblance to Emily Dickinson and didn't look anything like her photo (in which she bore an equally uncanny resemblance to Penelope Cruz). After being with her for a couple of hours while she went into the minutest detail about the intricacies of simple and complex amortization calculation, a numb feeling started to creep up from my toes; her droning voice had become a faint echo on the outer fringes of my sinking consciousness and I felt my self subsiding slowly and inexorably into a state of catatonia or even catalepsy. Fortunately for me, my life was literally saved as my cell phone burst into its deafening jingle of "Old Macdonald Had a Farm", startling into life the majority of the other patrons in the exclusive 3-Michelin star French restaurant (where I had no intention of paying the bill) amid a clatter of dropped cutlery and howls of pain as scalding hot soup and coffee spilled onto flies and laps and down cleavages. (Luckily, I'd had the foresight to arrange to have a friend of mine phone me at exactly 10 pm, just as a precaution in the event I needed an excuse to leave.) I took the call, listened with furrowed brow, shook my head and, putting on my best imitation of shock and disbelief said, "O no, it can't be, she was playing base runner on the front lawn with the local kids only yesterday", and put on a grim expression. "I have some bad news," I said. "I'm afraid I have to go - my grandmother's just died." The woman replied, "Thank God for that, if yours hadn't, mine would have had to."
I rushed out on the instant, leaving her to pick up the obscene tab. She looked like she could afford it.

Learn more about this author, Maximillion Mango-Chutney.
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