Careful...They Can Smell Fear By guest contributer Huck There have been some rumors flying around my dinner table as of late. Not all are about me (just to dispel any suggestion of solipsism); just the ones that I pay attention to. This particular rumor has to do with a Set Up. But not in a Michael Corleone way… more of a Nora Ephron way. It’s become clear to me in the last few years that the only way I’ll ever be able to avoid dying alone in my double-wide – bitter and loveless – is to be Set Up. So I’m much less averse to it than I used to be. Truthfully, I’m awful at meeting women. Terrible. I suck on toast. And that’s sugar-coating it. I’d give you an example, but any number of past incidents, while illuminating, are much too painful to re-live. Most end in drunkenness, violent sobbing, and/or court ordered psychiatric evaluations. Often all three. I tried the a-typical “Nice Guy” route. You know: the guy who has all these female friends who are always saying, “You’re such a Nice Guy, why aren’t you dating someone?” and they all date jerks while he just hangs around hoping that they’ll figure it out on their own…except, of course, my female friends never dated jerks, and never said that about me, and my half-assed attempts to worm my way into their hearts were always catastrophic failures. While dating seemed to be beyond my grasp, I found that I was exceptional at pining. No one could long for an unrequited love like yours truly. Or there was my adventure in e-dating. That would have turned out great if she hadn’t been such a venomous, duplicitous troglodyte without a shred of human decency. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I’m curled up in the dark, knees to chin, rocking myself to sleep. She was probably just a 350 lb. computer programmer named Gary with bad skin and the complete sonnets of Shakespeare memorized in Klingon…but, damnit, I loved him! So that leaves the personals (and I’ll be on my death-bed in the trailer park (or death-cot, as it were) before I place a personal) and the Set Up. What the hell, I told my parents, and gave them the green light. My father, being the can-do guy that he is, immediately called his friend… who told his wife, who contacted her ex-in-laws, who phoned their neighbor, who wired a telegram to a bridge partner, who sent up warning flares…at some point a woman was contacted, and possibly plans were made. It’s hard to tell anymore in this trickle-down world we live in. I discovered this much: she works in a bookstore. Refreshing after my last girlfriend, who needed to read the Rice Krispies box with a thesaurus. I’ve decided to go down tomorrow and scope her out. My grandfather recommended sending a scout, but I thought a shirtless guy with a feather in his hair might be a bit too conspicuous. Besides, I can do my own stalking, thank you very much. Who says our generation is lazy, huh? Here’s hoping she’s as delightfully non-litigious as she sounds.
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