Psycho Potato Killer

Editors Note: Mucho Thanks to my pal Sadielady for this story. Go visit her blog at http://oystersnbeer.blogspot.com , apparently this is only one of a string of lousy dates she's been going on, unfortunate for her...but GREAT for TheBadDate.com. Keep up the good work Sadie!
There's a cool bar I sometimes frequent that features a live jazz band on Tuesday and Saturday nights. One Tuesday night I was there with a girlfriend, sitting up at the bar drinking martinis, and my friend told me that there was a guy at a table checking me out. During one of the band's breaks the guy walked over to the bar to order drinks for his table and struck up a conversation with us. He had good conversation for a guy approaching two girls at a bar, made us laugh and got our attention. My friend said I should go for it, so when he came back over later for another round of drinks and took up residence in the empty seat next to me, I gave good conversation back and ended up handing out my phone number.
The first date was really good. We went for sushi, which I love. He ordered about half the menu, because there were so many things on it that I had never had before that he wanted me to try. We drank saki, lots of saki. We got along great. After dinner we went to another restaurant that has cool bar areas, outdoors and indoors. We started off outdoors, where there was a singer and a band, and when he asked me to dance during a slow song I laughed out loud at how ridiculous that sounded, especially seeing as how no one else was dancing or had danced the whole time we were there, but when he took no offense at my laughter and said he was serious and why not, and he was standing there beside me with his hand out, and the men in the band were looking at us and smiling their approval, I said okay why not, and we slow-danced. And the thing is, it was actually romantic. I mean, maybe if I were someone else there and saw us get up and dance I would have scoffed at us, but I think it would've been a jealous scoff, because it really made me feel special. Like I was in a romantic movie or something. Or at least a romantic episode of a sitcom on tv. When the band left, we went inside and talked til the place closed down. It was great. And when he dropped me off at home, he kissed me on the cheek, which ended the whole evening off on just the right note. So when he called later to ask for a second date, I was really looking forward to it. If only I had known what a psycho he truly was.

The second date was so completely different from the first date that I still wonder if I was really dating the guy's psycho twin brother that night. It started off by him picking me up at home in his car. Which turned out to be different from the car he had driven the first night. The car he had driven the first night, I found out, belonged to his mom. I also found out that night that he still lives with his mom: major warning sign. Why is it so important that he was driving a different car? Because his car was the freakiest looking thing I have ever seen. At one point in its lifetime it was a normal Honda. But turns out that this guy is a race-car fanatic, and after buying his Honda he decided to take it completely apart and put it back together again with certain modifications. Such as, the floor of the car was about 4 inches from the ground, so that when you step in and sit down you feel like you're about 3 feet tall. Also, the inside looks very bare-bones, not like a normal car: I don't know quite how to describe this better, except to say it looked like he had put the thing together from parts found in a junk yard. The engine made the most horrible noise: it was so loud, I'm sure you could hear it coming from miles away. This is also when I found out that despite the fact he told me on his first date what he did for a living (worked in some boring office), his REAL life's ambition is to be a professional box-car racer. This began a thirty-minute dissertation on box-car racing, which I THOROUGHLY enjoyed.

The first stop on our date was the zoo, which had a special lights show going on for the holiday season. Now this actually struck me as a very nice idea for starting off our second date, plus I had never been to the lights at the zoo before. But it quickly became ridiculous when he started making stupid animal noises at the animals. He was acting more childish than any of the children there, seriously. I guess he sensed my dislike for his behavior, because he quit with the animal noises, turned towards me, and started up some quiet, normal conversation - - soon followed by a move to hold my hand - - quickly followed by an annoying "hey! look! we're holding hands!", after which he started skipping. Yes, skipping. I swear. It was NOT funny.

So then we went to dinner. And here's where it got really scary. We went to an Outback Steakhouse for dinner; each table at an Outback has a picture of an animal at the table. We had some kind of monkey. Which my date NAMED, and then began TALKING TO, and kept talking to throughout the meal. At this point I ordered brown liquor, which I kept ordering throughout the meal. The waitress brought us a small loaf of bread while we were waiting on our food: it was on top of a little cutting board, with a big bread knife. My date asked if I would like some, and I said yes, so he took the bread knife and PUT IT BEHIND HIS BACK. He looked at me and smiled, then looked at the bread loaf and STARTED TALKING TO IT. He talked to it in a fake, high-pitched voice, and he said "hey, mr. bread loaf, how are you! what? what's that behind my back? oh, don't worry, it's nothing! I'm not going to hurt you! Don't be alarmed! See, there's nothing going on - - - (bringing out the knife) Oh! Oh! Oh! (cutting the bread) You're hurting me! You're hurting me! ohh, I'm dying! Ohhhh......" And then he gave me a slice of bread. I am so not making this up. So now I'm just staring at this guy, and when the waitress checks back with us to see how things are going, I just look up at her with desperate eyes and beg her for another Jack Daniels. Pretty soon the food comes: steak and baked potato for both of us. He ate his baked potato first, and when he was finished with it, he used his knife and fork to fold the skin of the potato over and over and over itself, until it formed a sort of rectangle. Then he told me that he had MADE A COFFIN for his potato, since he had killed it. Then he SAID A PRAYER OVER THE POTATO COFFIN, and told it to rest in peace, then moved it off to a side plate and turned to the steak, at which point he repeated the clever routine he had played out with the loaf of bread, the whole hide the steak knife behind the back thing and pretend that he's talking to the steak before he murders it. Again, I am so not making this shit up.

So when the meal was over and we left the restaurant, and he asked if I wanted to go somewhere else and get another drink or something, my answer was "no, please no, please please please just take me home." It was a quiet ride back. Very, very quiet. And when we got to my house, I just got out of the car and walked to my door, not caring whether he was following me or not. He did follow, so I looked back at him once and said goodbye. I guess he knew he had completely scared me off of him for life, because there was no smile, no there no words, there was no attempt to go for a good-night hug or kiss, and no asking for another date. And I never heard from him again, thank God, thank God.

And believe it or not, that's not even the worst of the guys I have dated. So stay tuned for the continuing series.