It has been brought to my attention that my blog posts have been increasingly sporadic and somewhat boring.  I must admit I can see the point, as the state of the world today has me more than a little pissed off and lazy/apathetic (at least when it comes to sitting down and writing).  So today I’m choosing to ignore politics and the shitty state of Detroit sports and go back to the comedic well.  That’s right my friends, by special request, we’re bringing you a new entry in the Date from Hell Chronicles.

As always, I swear on my life that this actually happened (to the best of my recollection).  And to my parents, I apologize.

Our story today actually came over a year ago, but after it was over I found myself really reassessing things and wondering what the hell I was doing with my life, so I wasn’t particularly enthused about revisiting this particular evening.  But after a year I can definitely see the humor in it.

This particular story begins almost 4 years before, when a group of friends and I were out to watch some football.  One of my friends and his girlfriend decided to invite a friend of theirs and introduce her to me.  After a while we head back to his girlfriend’s place, me and the friend play around a bit, we go back to her place (more on this in a minute), play a bit more, then fall asleep.  Nothing really significant happened, and when the date that is the subject of this story takes place, I’m fairly certain she doesn’t remember me.

Now, there are two things to note about this girl.  One, she was missing a tooth.  I understand that people have dental issues, but generally you try to get things like this fixed.  Two, she lived in her father’s basement.  Again, I understand that people fall on rough times and need to stay with family, but it’s a bit of a red flag at my age.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016, and my friend Shoe Boy’s* girlfriend Farmer Girl* is trying to set me up with her sister.  Except her sister has 4 kids, including a newborn, and because I’m an asshole who would prefer to date people without kids, I subtly push her toward setting me with Toothless, the girl from years before.  I’d checked out her Facebook page, she looked fairly normal, and I figured after 4 years she had probably gotten her tooth fixed and her own place.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.  And the guilty.

If only.

So Farmer Girl decided to set up a double date with Shoe Boy and Toothless and I for a Saturday in July.  As Farmer Girl and I were coordinating, we decided to meet up around 8:00.  I told her I was going to check out a movie and then I’d meet up with her, and she asked what movie.  I told her I was going to see Suicide Squad, and she suggested the 4 of us go together.  Sure, no problem, let’s check out the 6:30 movie, and then we’ll grab drinks and food after.

Shortly thereafter, Farmer Girl texts me in a huff saying that Shoe Boy was being a dipshit, she wasn’t going out, but that Toothless still wants to meet up and I should get in touch with her.  OK, this is a bit of a red flag, but to be honest I’m looking at Toothless as a bit of a slump buster (look it up if you’re not familiar), so I decide to hit her up.  When I do, she says she’s definitely interested in hanging out, but that I need to pick her up because she can’t drive.  Another red flag.

Now, if I had any common sense and/or self-esteem, I would’ve looked at the sum total of red flags – the missing tooth, living in her father’s basement, not driving, my friends bailing and eliminating any support system – and decided to cancel or reschedule.  But nope.  Because hey, I might get laid.

If only.

If you’re familiar with the show How I Met Your Mother, you’re familiar with the concept of a Lemon Law date.  Essentially, if you show up to your date and the person is nothing like what you expected, you declare “Lemon Law” at the beginning of the date and you go your separate ways.  Now, I’ve never called Lemon Law on a date, but I’ve been very tempted and I’ve met people who have.  If ever I was going to use it, it was when I showed up to pick Toothless up.

If only.

She still lived at her father’s house.  She was still missing the tooth.  And of course she couldn’t drive (not necessarily relevant in a lot of cities, but certainly an issue in Detroit).

The girl was not unattractive, and I’m not particularly a looker, so I decided to muscle through and hope there’s a decent payoff at the end.  So we head to one of my favorite local bars to grab dinner and watch the Tigers and the Olympics.

Red flag #1: she starts ordering shots of Fireball.  With Every. Single. Round.

OK, I wasn’t quite looking to go down this route, but hey, payoff, right?

So we finish up at bar #1 and decide to hit a dive bar and maybe play some pool or darts or something.  I mention another one of my local favorites, which both she and Farmer Girl despise.  She offers up the Toy Chest.  The Toy Chest is a strip club (red flag #4).  More significantly, the Toy Chest is a strip club 25 miles away (red flag #5).

Now, previously in the Date from Hell Chronicles I have discussed a personal policy of never turning down a girl who says she wants to go to a strip club, so while I wasn’t particularly looking to see more than one naked lady that night, I wasn’t going to turn her down.  But I wasn’t about to drive 50 miles getting to and from a strip club when there were several on my side of town, so I called veto and suggested Centerfolds, which is likely the diviest strip club in the Detroit Metro area that hasn’t shown up on Bar Rescue.  She’s down.  In fact, not only is she down, if I’m not mistaken she claims she had previously worked at Centerfolds as a house-mother.

We get to Centerfolds and notice that there is a party bus pulling up just as we pay our cover and head in.  This didn’t really stand out except to notice that Centerfolds isn’t exactly the type of place you might take a party bus to.  But after we get in and order our drinks – a bucket of beer for me, a drink for her, and, of course, shots of Fireball – I notice that she’s over talking to one of the guys from the party bus.  Not a huge deal, I try not to be the type of guy to tell someone who they can and can’t talk to.  It turns out that she had babysat the guy years back.  But when the guy shows up at our table a few minutes later, the date goes into “What the fuck is going on?” territory.

The guy sits down and proceeds to tell Toothless that he’d love to see her tits, and that he’s wanted to ever since she babysat him.  Hey, this is understandable, every guy wants to see every girl’s boobs, and to an extent I had to admire the balls on the guy for even asking.  For some reason I don’t recall being particularly pissed, and I’m not sure why, although I imagine the general lack of interest I had in Toothless was the primary reason.

Now, considering the fact that she was ordering shots with every round and was, in fact, the one who suggested we hit the strip club, I should not have been surprised when she accepted the guy’s request (red flag #6).  Instinct, however, had my eyes bulging out of my head, as she looked at me and told me not to look, as this was third date material for me (I didn’t tell her that there was no way in hell there was going to be a second date, let alone a third one).  After the guy had gotten a good enough look, I told him it was time for him to leave, he did, and we finished our drinks and decided to head to another local strip club.

Why we were doing a tour of local strip clubs I’ll never know.

It needs to be pointed out that throughout the evening Toothless and I were trying to get in touch with Farmer Girl and Shoe Boy to get them to come out, which probably says something about how well Toothless and I were getting along.  Between the two strip clubs, Toothless finally heard from Shoe Boy, who asked her point-blank if I was getting laid tonight.  Thanks Shoe Boy, somehow I don’t think that question is going to help.  A fact that was confirmed when she proclaimed quite indignantly that it wasn’t going to happen as she doesn’t do that on the first date.  Understandable, although you can hopefully understand a guy’s confusion when you just showed your tits to another guy in the strip club.

As you might imagine, my mood changed considerably at this point, because I am a terrible person.  We went to the next strip club, ordered another drink, had another shot, and she asked if someone was working (they weren’t).  We finished our drinks, then decided to close the night at a “normal” bar.  Bet you don’t know what we did there?  That’s right, ordered a drink and a shot (shocker!).  Except Toothless kept disappearing, which I wasn’t particularly concerned about, although I did find it a bit rude considering we were supposedly on a date.  I finally ventured outside, where she was talking to another guy.

And then, for the second time in my life, I left a date at a bar.

To be fair, this time I paid the bill, but I’d had enough.  This was supposed to be a casual double date, and for various reasons, I’d missed out on a movie I’d been wanting to see, watched my date take out her tits for another guy, seen her talk to a different guy at every single bar we’d been to, and paid a ridiculous amount of money with nary an effort to pick up a tab (I don’t care about paying, I care about the offer).  So I decided to cut my losses and call it a night (to be fair it was almost last call).

I made it home, fell on the floor, passed out, and woke up to a voice mail from Shoe Boy praising me for leaving her behind.  I didn’t really think it was particularly praiseworthy, but I did feel like less of an asshole for doing it when he sent that.  I sent a text to apologize to Farmer Girl later in the day, and she, surprisingly, apologized to me for setting me up with her.

In telling this story to friends previously, it was a no-brainer that I had asked to be set up with a total shit-show, she had behaved like a total shit-show, and it was a funny story.  In writing it up, however, I realize that I had been asked to be set up with someone for a one-shot date that hopefully ended up in bed, so I didn’t exactly have the purest of intentions.

Shockingly, Farmer Girl still wanted to set me up with her sister, but since she and Shoe Boy have broken up it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.  And while this might come as common sense to most, perhaps when your friends have single friends, and they’re not offering to set you up with those single friends, you really shouldn’t push the issue.

Naturally, though, I have to learn the hard way.  The lesson, as always: I am an idiot.