The Blind Date
(January 25, 2004)

I'm not a big fan of blind dates.  I would rather pick out my own dates.  As an independent woman, I feel if I can make my own meals, make my own friends, surely, I can find my own soulmate.  My friend, Wendy, think differently as she is always trying to set me up with someone.  Finally, against my better judgement, I agreed on one condition; it had to be a double date with her and her boyfriend Gabe.

So on a Friday night, Wendy and myself arrived at Dorsey's, the best wing place in the city, to be greeted by Gabe and his buddy (a.k.a my date), Harvey Hamel.  Gabe introduced us and Harvey gave me some flowers.  Flowers might seemed impressive for other girls, but flowers have long lost their lustre, since I work in a Flower Shop.  He seemed like a nice fellow; cheerful, friendly and sort-of funny.

I looked around the long and narrow little restaurant full of patrons wiping their greasy fingers.  On the grease stained walls were photographs of people.

"Who are the pictures of?" I asked.
"Oh, they are people who have broken the record."
"What record?"

Harvey pointed to the wall behind me and spoke rather arrogantly in a condiscending manner.
"Who can eat the most 'Fire Engine' wings in an hour.  The record is 57."

I turned around to find a Dorsey's Wall of Fame on a blackboard.  The blackboard consisted of a list of the five people who have eaten the most wings in an hour.  Beside each name was the number of wings they had eaten.  I thought to myself the type of person who would consider it an honour to be on that blackboard.  "Look at me, I'm a pig.", I thought.  I read the names on the list and to my surprise, the number one spot, the biggest pig of them all was... Harvey Hamel with 57.  I gave Harvey a disapproving look.

"Yep that's me." he boasted.  "I did that two years ago."
"Congratulations." I said sarcastically. "It must be a real honour to have your name on a blackboard."

Wendy, sitting beside me, kicked me.

"I don't know about honour, but it was cool.  To tell you the truth, I still have my certificate on a wall at home."
"Certificate?"
"Oh, when you get your name of the blackboard, they give you a certificate.  It has a seal and everything.  Pretty cool."

I looked at the board again.

"Hey, there isn't any girls on the list!"

Harvey laughed but I was not amused.  He stopped laughing as gave Gabe a dirty look.  I can only assume Gabe had kicked him just like Wendy had kicked me.

When the waitress came over, Harvey started ordering for all of us.  I'm an independent woman, I can order for myself.

"Actually Harv, I thought I would try to beat the record."
He laughed.
"Miss, I'll take 60 Fire Engine wings." I looked at Harv. "If I'm going to beat your record, I might as well beat it by 3.  Oh and miss, I'll need 3 cokes."

"Do you understand the rules?"
"Yes."
"You have one hour to eat them and if you do your meal is free, but if you don't we charge ya for everything."
"Right."  

Wendy and Gabe ordered their meals while Harvey pondered.

"Harvey, what will you have?"  the waitress asked.
"Come on Harv, scared to lose to a girl?" I taunted.
"Miss I'll have the same as Suzy here.  Let's beat my record.  I'm not scared to lose to you, I'm scared you'll be mad when I beat you."

We engaged in a staring contest until the food arrived.  Three waitresses and the owner delivered the wings.  The background music stopped and Mr. Dorsey gave a speech to everyone, outlining the rules of the contest.  All the patrons gave us a countdown to start.  At "One!" I gave Harv a swift kick in the shin.  At "Go!" I grabbed the first piece, took it between my index finger and thumb and ate politely fast.  I looked across at Harv who had no manners, no etiquette, who was grabbing the wings like a biker would to the throttle.  It didn't seem to matter which method as each of us ate at the same pace.

We ate and ate, and then ate.  At the 47 minute mark my stomach told me to stop but I did not listen.  I kept eating.  Ten minutes later the logical portion of my brain, the part that tells you not to bath with a hair dryer and not to grab a knife from its blade, told me to stop.  I looked across at Harvey who had stopped too.

"Maybe we should stop, I mean we have both eaten 58, we have the record."
"Yeah, maybe you're right." I said.
"And besides we would have something in common.  Not many couples could say they had a record in common."
"True."
"How about it?  Truce?"
"Truce."

We put down our wings and shook each other's greasy hand.

"30 seconds left!" the waitress yelled to the crowd.

After I shook his hand I reached onto my pile, grabbed a wing.

"What are you doing?" Harv asked.
"I'm getting the record!" I said and hurriedly ate the wing, all the time staring at Harvey with an grin of victory.

"Time is up!"  the siren rang.  "And our winner, and new record holder is Suzy TooToo with 59 wings!"

I stood up and bowed to my adoring public.  The final bow to Harvey caused my stomach to moan.  A sensation built in my stomach, a feeling I knew all too well from my weekend bar hopping in university.  I grabbed my pail full of the 59 wing bones and puked like I had never puked before.  In a break between hurls, I looked up at my date.

"You should puke too.  It would mean we have something in common.  We could build from..." I couldn't finish my sentence because I puked again.

"You're insane.  Wendy, Gabe, it was nice to see you again.  I'm outta here."

Harvey put some money on the table and gave me the look that I would give to a crazy person on the street.  I stopped puking long enough to run outside to chase after Harvey.

"Come'on, we can build from this.  Think of the great story it would be."  

With this shout, I puked the remaining 35 wings into the street gutter.  I walked back into Dorsey's alone, back to Gabe and Wendy.

"I can't believe you.  A perfectly nice guy like Harvey and you chase him away.  Puking on a first date?  Suzy how could you?"

The song "" played over the speakers as the owner adjusted the blackboard to reflect my triumph.  A waitress came out with my certificate.  When she handed me, my certificate I understood why Harvey still had it on his wall at home.  The seal really made the certificate.  I  was nicer than my diploma or university degree.

"Miss TooToo." Mr. Dorsey said to me. "Congratulations on the record but as you know, part of the rules requires the participant to clean up all of their puke.  Tiffany, go get Miss TooToo an apron from the back."  Gabe and Wendy finished their meal while I cleaned up all the puke off the floor, table, sidewalk and, sigh, they even made me wash the pail.

Now, every time I go back to Dorsey's, (I go back a lot - since I am the champion) Mr. Dorsey always says "Hello Suzy PukePuke.  It's great to see you again."