Originally published in the back of Braced2Bite, my debut book.

Super Secret Author Confession Volume 1

My Worse Date Ever?

In college, I experienced my worst date ever. Feel free to mock my pain.

I had a crush on a boy who worked in the dining hall. After many weeks of flirting, he finally asked me out. He took me to a party at his apartment where, within a half hour of arriving, he received a phone call from his ‘other’ job. He claimed he was also an on-call janitor for one of the dorms. After apologizing profusely, he changed into spandex shorts (Dude, it was the 80’s), assured me he would return within the hour, and left to fulfill his janitorial duties. I did not see him again until 6 am the next morning.

I was stranded at his apartment with a bunch of people I didn’t know. After playing one too many rounds of Quarters (plop the coin in the beer and chug, chug, chug), I crashed in his room. I also, sort of—threw up on this bed. At about six in the morning I stumbled downstairs and found him cleaning up. He was so sorry and so sweet. He assured me he kept calling to make sure I was okay because he ended up having to “work” all night. I should have been suspicious, because he was really understanding about the whole vomit on his comforter thing. He gallantly offered to drive me back to my dorm after asking me to go to a concert with him the following week.

Once back in my own bed, I drifted off to sleep, dreaming about our next date. I awoke to fierce pounding at my door.

“Where were you last night?” my friends demanded. I explained about my date and his “other” job. Imagine my surprise to discover my date had left me stranded at his apartment while he went on another date with a girl who lived two doors down from me. He took her to a widely advertised dance in the dining hall and entered the spandex competition (he won second place). Then he spent the night with her and returned home to me, his original date.

The best part of the story? When I confronted this guy, he was most upset that I wasn’t going to the concert and he expected me to reimburse him for the ticket.

Oh yes, this is a true story. And no, I did not reimburse him for the ticket.