A Bad Date
Written by: Zach Burd
If someone had told me I’d be on a date with Mei Lin a few days ago, my pants would have to been washed immediately. Mei was the, at first glance, girl next door. That cliché was her thing, and she played it as well as the devil played the fiddle. And my life now was her instrumented nightmare.
“You ready to hit this?” she asked, dangling a joint in my face as if it was a carrot and I was a horse.
“No, I don’t do drugs,” I said.
“You’re so lame,” she mocked as she blew out a cloud of smoke all over me closing her eyes in an attempt to be seductive. Her charms weren’t working on me. They kind of stopped when she made me take her to this lame tourist trap that mocked my Chinese heritage.
I had grown up in the States all my life, and I was well aware of the amount of knowledge the average American had for my people. That wasn’t what bothered me. What bothered me was Mei Lin’s lack of respect for her culture, her history. I never would have brought us here if I knew she wanted to make fun of everything I held in high regard.
The bathroom was full of smoke. The disgusting aroma of marijuana filled my nostrils. My small head made me come in here. My big head was telling me to get out.
“I’m leaving to wait for our food,” I said, walking out without a word from her.
“I don’t see how you can eat that crap without the munchies,” she laughed. Never in my life had I wanted to smack a woman this badly.
Our food had just arrived. The waiter smiled and nodded to me, and I did so right back. This was defiantly not an authentic restaurant, but at least the service was decent. That may be this date’s only saving grace.
When I sat down, however, my plate with the chicken and rice I ordered fell onto my lap. The waiter had put it on the edge of the table, and now General Tso was all over my crotch. The service was out to get me too.
“Stupid!” Mei Lin called out, pointing at my lap.
“It’s really funny, Mei Lin. A one to tell the grandkids,” I said, putting the plate back on the table. I brushed what food I had left on me off to the floor. I was done with tonight.
“The grandkids were exactly who I was thinking of,” she said. Her tone scared me. A lot.
When I stood up I didn’t have much time to react. One of the hostesses put a blue shenyi over my shoulders and pushed in front of a giant picture of a Chinese house on a lake. Before I could react Mei Lin was dressed in her own pink shenyi and was holding on my chest.
Suddenly, the photographer snapped a Polaroid eternalizing my hellish date forever.
