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We met at Third coast, on Dearborn, and when the guy arrived he went to another table. I guessed that he was intending to perform a “flyover,” seeing that no one in the room met his criteria. I identified myself. He joined me, with a terse apology: “You were writing so intently.” Scott ordered a scotch and invited me to order anything I’d like. I requested a Caesar salad with grilled squid, and the evening became the “Calamari for Boobs” date, seeing that once the salad arrived the guy just slurped his scotch and spent the entire night addressing my rack. He also told me how beautiful his ex-wife is. “Once, we were in Morocco,” he said to the top of my left one, “and I was offered one thousand camels for her.” I paused midbite and wondered: Did he know the market rate? What if the going price for an attractive woman was two thousand camels? I couldn’t help but speculate: This guy obviously doesn’t think I’m a thousand-camel woman. Am I a five-hundred-camel woman? Do I hear two hundred?
Weeks later, Scott comes home drunk and IMs me. He doesn’t recall who the e-mail belongs to. “Who are you?” he types.
“Really?” he types. I glance again. Yeah, not too far from average, not the tragedy of microphallus.
Richard Wilcose—My Bloody Valentine
Sofia Penelope Brown—555-Weed
Marisa Vlasak—The Girl With the Elephant Balloon
S.L. Wisenberg—Paris
Jack Berger—Say It Again, Vince
