Make a Run for the Bother

Attention, teenage guys! I have found, purely by dumb luck, the perfect date: dinner at Taco Bell, then church youth group. It’s cheap and religious — the two things that impress a girl most.

Here’s what happened. This girl named Jill turned 16, like most girls do at some point, and her best friend Laura arranged, as a gift, for Jill to have a date every night for a week. (I guess you can see where this is headed.) I heard about this little arrangement right around the time that one of the dates canceled and Laura asked me to take his place. I was honored to know that Laura considered li’l ol’ me to be the last available Christian guy on the face of the earth who was not legally ugly who would of course be happy to drop all his plans for a Wednesday evening and take out a girl whom he had never actually spoken to before, except for the time that he yelled at her to get out of his way because he was about to run her over with his car.

Naturally, my answer was a resounding, “What, are you nuts?”

I pointed out to Laura that I could not take Jill out because:

  • I had youth group that night, and I couldn’t skip out because I was in charge of the activity for the evening (not that I had planned anything at this point, but it sounded like a good excuse).

  • My car is not the kind of car that you take a girl out in. It is the kind of car that you KILL a girl in. It is the kind of car that you park in the garage and leave the engine running in order to kill yourself with carbon monoxide fumes. It is the kind of car that, if blind people were somehow enabled to drive, even THEY would not drive it because they would notice, even without the benefit of eyesight, that the gear shift lever comes out in your hand everytime you shift from drive to reverse.

  • I had no money.

    But Laura, in her own special way, bugged the snot out of me until I finally said I would take Jill out. I told her that I was only going to take her little friend to Taco Bell and then to my youth group, but she said that was better than nothing. I disagreed. NOTHING would have COST me nothing.

    So I picked up Jill and we went to Taco Bell. After ordering from the 59¢ menu (which is terribly underrated), we found a lovely, secluded table near the window, just under a papier mache chicken. (You can tell a classy restaurant by the things hanging from its ceiling.) It was then that I realized yet another good reason why you should take your dates to Taco Bell: Even if you’re not a very funny guy, you can provide endless amusement for them by attempting to eat a tostada without it breaking all over the place. I would suggest you practice beforehand, though, lest you accidentally get tostada remnants all over the floor like I did, causing a large, burly Taco Bell lackey to glare at you as though you had just stabbed his mother with a pitchfork. At this point, I would have done just that if I had thought it would be funny.

    After youth group, I took her home and gave her the warmest, tenderest, most passionate handshake that I have ever given anyone. I think she enjoyed it, too, because it was the only part of the evening that didn’t involve religion or refried beans.

    The bullet point.

    It's that black dot next to this line. It's an important tool in my column writing technique, as you may have noticed. I think almost anything is funnier if you put it next to a bullet point.

    That is all.


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