A Date Which Will Live in Infamy

WARNING! The following, somewhat hilarious, post contains graphic details of an unpleasant, however somewhat hilarious, nature. Read at your own risk.


Wednesday morning at 5:15, Producer and I left our hotel in Overland Park, Kansas for the Kansas City, Missouri, airport. There didn't appear to be a decent restaurant within sight of our gate, so we broke fast on Cinnabon and coffee. (Um… yuck!) Save for a minor delay, the flight was uneventful. Knowing that I had plans for the evening with Lisa, and how we both seemed to click quickly, I was eager to see her again. The more I thought about her, the more nervous and excited I got. I actually had butterflies in my tummy!

Since it was so early, Producer and I went back to our office. I planned to get out of there at 1:30, seeing as how I would have already worked an eight-hour day by that point. At first it didn't seem likely that I would succeed; the boss wanted me to do a shoot in our studio mid-day. Fortunately it was only about a half-hour, and after I packed up the gear I had little else to do, so I left. I hadn't eaten anything substantial all day except sugar and bread (in that order!), so on my way home I stopped at McDonald's and brought home a Big Mac combo for a quick meal.

Lisa gets out of work at 3:30, so we planned on meeting at her place for a glass of wine before heading off to Big Bowl for a nice dinner. Since I had eaten so little all day, I didn't think the Mickey D's would fill me up too much and spoil my appetite by the time we were heading out for dinner, which I would have guessed would be around 6:00. However, I felt awfully darn full for quite a while after eating and, on top of the butterflies, I felt uncomfortable and was struggling to burp out the insistent gas. I feared an embarrassing date.

On the drive over to Lisa's apartment the discomfort only got worse with the increased anticipation of seeing her again. My hope was that when I did see her, my nerves would calm and I would feel better. She let me in, we kissed and she poured me a glass of wine. Maybe it was the kissing, but her apartment seemed awfully warm, so I took off my sweater. She expressed to me that she was experiencing the butterflies sensation, too, so I felt a little less self-conscious about that, but I didn't feel any better.

After several minutes of small talk, and her concern about how I was feeling, I felt a burp coming on, but then it didn't exactly feel like a burp. I suppressed it, but a few minutes later I felt the same sensation coming on. I feared I was going to vomit, so I got up to head for the bathroom. Suddenly my mouth filled from behind and I dashed to the kitchen sink. I will go into no further detail about that, but suffice it to say that I spent the next several minutes with my face hovering over the drain… Also… you know how when that happens, sometimes something comes out the other end? Well, yeah, that happened too.

After that wave passed I excused myself to the bathroom where I removed the bottom half of my clothing, rinsed my underpants under the bathtub faucet and cleaned myself up down there. Lisa gave me a plastic grocery bag in which to store my undies, I put my pants back on and I went back into the living room, commando-style. My hope was that the butterflies had gotten the better of me, but that it was all over and downhill from there.

It was not.

We decided that Big Bowl was most definitely out of the question for the evening, and we decided to just relax at her place. After about a half-hour of feeling just dandy, I started feeling overly warm once more. When I thought I was definitely going to hurl again, I excused myself to the bathroom where I took off my pants! Sure enough, moments later I found myself on all fours filling Lisa's toilet from one end, and from the other christening her floor and wall in a most disgusting manner!

I cleaned everything up (after which, I'm sure, Lisa pressure-washed and acid-scrubbed!), and we both determined that it was indeed not butterflies that were my undoing, but more likely a peculiarly timed bout of food poisoning.

So I donned my coat and hat, collected my defiled, wet undies and left. I hit the cold winter air outside and was consumed with a case of the chills so severe I thought I would rattle my teeth loose, and I thought I was going to have to stop before I got home to hurl on the side of the road (imagine that scene: bottomless man beside the road, puking and shitting in counter-directional streams!). But I arrived home feeling critically embarrassed and physically miserable, but mostly embarrassed. I undressed and climbed into bed and awaited the worst.

I didn't barf again after the last time Wednesday night at Lisa's, but I was up every hour through the night doing the other thing. I took the day off from work and spent the morning watching my new Blu-Ray disc copy of Bullitt, as well as the three hours of other features on the disc!

I had plans to go to a Dining Out meetup Thursday evening, as did Lisa, so, trooper that she is, we agreed to try again. I felt somewhat human again by the afternoon, so I picked her up at her apartment and we went to the restaurant. My appetite was non-existent (though I didn't find out until the steak arrived), but I still felt better. We had a nice time and said good-bye to our friends, and we headed back to her place.

Despite the unpropitious start to our young relationship, Lisa seems totally unfazed by Wednesday's events. I won't go into any details as to why I feel that way, nor will I divulge where I woke up Friday morning.

But it's all good.