Look, I like naked women. I’m a man, I’m supposed to like them. We’re born like that. We like naked women as soon as we’re pulled out of one. Halfway down the birth canal we’re already enjoying the view. Look it is the four pillars of the male heterosexual psyche: we like naked women, stockings, lesbians, and Sean Connery best as James Bond, because that is what being a boy is…When man invented fire, he didn’t say, “Hey, let’s cook.” He said, “Great, now we can see naked asses in the dark.” As soon as the printing press was invented, we were using it to make pictures of naked asses. We’ve turned the Internet into an enormous international database of naked asses. So you see, the story of male achievement through the ages, feeble though it may have been, has been the story of our struggle to get a better look at your asses.

The average man has some sort of skills when it comes to talking to women. I do not. So it’s worth noting that I will do a lot of stupid/charming things, pay a lot of money and go out with less than reputable women in the pursuit of sex. I think it’s important for you to keep that in mind when you read this story.

Over the past couple of weeks/months, my coworkers and I have been going to the same bar for happy hour on Friday. It was during those happy hours that it became apparent that either our group is awesome or the bar sucks (I suspect the majority is the latter, but that’s a story for another day). So we’d developed a rapport with one of the waitresses, even hanging out with her after one of these happy hours.

With that in mind, the waitress and I were texting each other this past Sunday when I asked her if she wanted to grab drinks after her shift. She said yes. OK, step one towards nailing my crush (ain’t I a romantic?).

She suggests we meet at the local casino. You know what’s a great place for a first date? A bar. A restaurant. A movie. A sporting event. A pool hall. A horse race. A dog fight. You know what’s not a great place for a first date? A casino.

Luckily, she suggested we grab some food, so we went across the street to a pizza place, only it was a pizza place with a martini menu. Lunch and three martinis a piece into the afternoon and she decides we should head back to the casino.

To play the slots.

I hate the slots. I would make a statement about people who play the slots being idiots, but I know a lot of intelligent people who play them, so I must say only that I hate the slots. They’re not interesting, there’s no skill involved, generally speaking it just strikes me as a waste of money. But my friend decides we’re playing the penny slots, so I decide this can’t be too bad.

Here’s the thing about penny slots though. They’re not penny slots. I figure I drop a twenty, I’ve got two thousand plays. Au contraire. Depending on the machine you’re using you have to play a minimum of anywhere between 25 and 40 cents per play. Yeah, that’s not a penny slot, that’s a 40 cent slot. So my twenty went fast. And then the next one. And the next one after that. Then my fives and finally the singles.

OK, at least I’m making some progress on getting laid. Right? Right? Anyone?

Throughout all this we were getting drinks. Well duh. And we stopped to watch the end of the Daytona 500. Well, no, we watched to see a massive wreck in the final lap of the Daytona 500 that took out Dale Earnhardt Jr. We didn’t actually see who won the race because she wanted to go play the slots again. OK, whatever, I’m not much of a NASCAR guy.

We finally exhausted our slot money – after she decreed that she was delving into her bill money – and just took up drinking for the rest of the afternoon/evening. This woman could hold her own no question. After our/her 3rd purple rain – which I will never drink again, no matter how awesome they are at the Emagine theatres – we’re getting a little closer and I’m thinking I’m going to seal the deal. That’s when the nipple trauma started.

I’m not entirely certain how it started, but she was – at the bar, in the casino – reaching into my shirt and twisting my nipples. Hard. I’m pretty sure we could’ve gotten the location of Osama Bin Laden if she was down at Guantanamo Bay twisting terrorists’ nipples. She’s reaching into my shirt, I’m screaming, in the casino. The bartender is a huge fan of ours.

So after it’s made apparent that we should not be drinking anymore, by the bartender, who has a vested interest in us continuing to drink, we decide to grab some food at a restaurant in the casino. Once we sat down at the restaurant she hit a wall and we basically decided it was time to call it a night.

Only she was in no condition to drive. This isn’t a huge issue, as I’m ok to drive (a relative term, but whatever). Only she’s not giving up her keys. Hmm, this could be an issue.

I mean, she’s really not giving up her keys. Not giving up her keys to the extent of security getting involved. At this point she decides she’s not going home or getting a hotel room, but rather going back to the casino. Clearly they’re not going to let that happen, and really I just wanted to watch what happened.

The security woman asked her if I was her husband.

“No.”

Am I her friend?

“No.”

Does she know me?

“No.”

Hindsight in this situation has brought me to numerous different outcomes, but I wasn’t about to sit there trying to convince casino security to let me take care of a woman who claims she doesn’t know me. That’s the kind of stuff kidnapping charges are made of.

So I left.

I wasn’t happy about it. I didn’t feel good about myself. And I had a feeling that something bad was going to take place. The fact that we were sitting in the middle of a snowstorm that would leave 10” on the ground didn’t help me to feel much better about my decision.

Still, y’know, kidnapping.

I get home and fall asleep. Sometime around 4 am I woke up to a couple of texts from the waitress, the second of which read the following:

She smashed her car fucking with your bitch ass.

Ordinarily I would’ve been racked with grief, but deep down I knew this wasn’t my fault. But I did want to know what was going on, since the text obviously wasn’t sent by my friend. So even though it was 4 am on a Monday morning when I needed to be at work by 9, in the middle of a snowstorm, I decided to ask her what had happened.

Sure enough, she had left – good call by casino security there – and gotten into an accident. By the grace of God, the only real damage was to her car, although she did get a split lip. On top of that, a couple of teenagers had seen the accident and picked her up after the fact, so not only did she suffer no major injuries, she also didn’t wind up in jail. She did wind up with an $1800 bill for the damages to her truck.

All things considered I’d say she was pretty lucky.

I got to wake up early the next morning and give her a ride to work. She was hungover, sore, pissed and dealing with a psycho ex who had to fix the car and was pissed that she was out socializing the night before. But she wasn’t dead or in jail.

That was almost certainly the last time I will have seen her.

So I’m not sure where it ranks, but when the summary of your date is, “The girl wrecked her car after I abandoned her drunk ass at the casino,” it probably has to rank pretty high.