tim, sf

I don't remember her name, but for the sake of the story I will call her Slidejaw because if you paid attention you could see at the end of her sentences she would slide her lower jaw slightly to one side.

It was initially a quaint nuance that stirred very strong desires in me to tie her to furniture or invent contests that involved kissing... later it just became a place I wanted to aim for with my fist.

We worked together so there was alot of flirting and accidental touching prior to the one date we went on, the run-up felt promising and she was naughty enough in passing without that whole "restraining order" vibe some of them have as you peel the onion.

I took her to a standard Midwestern Italian restaurant. The type of place you get a tiny bowl of cold spaghetti covered in ketchup marinara with every meal. We ordered and made stilted small talk since this was really the first time we had talked at length rather than just whispered at the copy machine. Right away I could tell I was in trouble and had badly misjudged the potential (still working on this skill by the way). I get half a drink in her and she begins to relax and share her feeling about her mother. She hated her mother. Her mother had ruined her. Her mother was in league with Satan. She had developed long term mental tortures to undermine Slidejaws self esteem from conception. The resentment was deep, bitter, the wound weeping and wide open. Slidejaw seemed to grow taller in her chair as she shared these tales of a crazy disaster mom. Her chin rising higher, her voice become more animated, emotional, the jaw slicing to the left... she was just gaining momentum as the salads were delivered. When the salad was placed in front of her she froze. Her eyes didn't come off the salad bowl. Fork suspended in space, eyes down, jaw pointed to Cleveland...

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"Croutons" she says.

"Yea? Salad enhancement, " I say.

"You don't understand, my mother almost choked to death on a crouton once! Croutons are not allowed in my home! We HATE croutons!"

I could see she had similar feelings for croutons as she did for her disaster mom, but in hindsight this might have been a meeting point for the two of them. Bonding over their crushing bitterness towards salad accouterments. She placed a napkin next to the bowl and removed the croutons one and a time, pinching each one between thumb and index finger, all other fingers splayed high to avoid any accidental crumb transfer from the horrid task. The napkin was rolled tight and handed to the startled waitress at arms length as if Slidejaw was trying to avoid the stench of the poor croutons. I asked her why she didn't request a salad without croutons if she hated them so much. Her replay was sharp and indignant.

"How was I suppose to know they would be bringing my salad buried in croutons?"

And this is where I knew I was in real trouble. Anyone who doesn't understand croutons are coming on an iceberg lettuce salad in any restaurant where the waitresses are 50-ish and wearing sensible stride rite shoes is way way down in the denial mine. The canary is dead and the all the lanterns are out of oil deep down in that hole. She was never able to get past this moment. She took it out on the waitress, she took it out on me in small, quiet last-word comments. The one I do remember is her saying, "I can see how you would think that..." after I had shared some opinion she obviously disagreed with.

The date was suppose to be dinner and a movie. As I worked my way through a pretty fillet as thick as a first aid kit she ranted. That jaw clicking over like a typewriter carriage. I dug deep to try and figure out who to get this crazy bitch into my car and onto her mothers lawn as quickly as possible but I was blank with good ideas so we ended up going to the movie after all.

We took our seats and she suddenly sat upright and was looking at my lap. I look down and there was no pee stain and I hadn't strategically arranged it so my cock was laying out so I was in new territory, I had no idea what the problem was.

"What's wrong?' I ask.
"Are you really going to sit like that?" she asks.

My legs were crossed at the knee. Not the side-calf-across-the-knee, but the dad style gentle men's leg cross. "

You're sitting like a faggot" she said, her voice biting.

I have no idea why I drag her really nice ass out of there, but instead I sat there my heart racing like there was a fist fight standing at my toe-tips. I was nothing but blind red rage and breathing with my teeth together. I never even verbally responded. I just sat there in awe... stewing. Who has the audacity to judge someones choice of leg crossing options? What sort of platform are you standing on when you make that assessment? It took me until to the first plot point of the movie to calm down enough to try and follow the movie. In the end she followed me to my car three stride behind me. I played the radio too loud and once we arrived at her curb I placed my right arm across the backs of the seats, looked away from her, out the window on my side and simply said, "Later..." When I heard the door shut I drove away. I never saw her eyes again. We never really spoke again, not that night or at work ever again.

I love a good crouton by the way, fucking brilliant what they are doing with salads these days...