A Date with Disaster

The evening was warm and breezy. Shane was on his way to pick up a girl his friend had set him up with. He was hoping for a nice enjoyable evening. His friend, who had orchestrated the date, had went on and on about how pretty the girl was and how much fun. They'd described her personality as bubbly, in fact. As he drove up the driveway to her house, he noticed it looked nice and normal, after some past experiences he'd had, he was glad to see this.

The house was painted butter yellow with white shutters and had flowerboxes in the front windows. A cat was curled up in a rocker on the front porch and Shane stopped to pet it. The cat looked up at him and purred quietly. It was when he got closer to the front door, he got a look at the adornment decorating it. A hot pink bra, edged in black lace, was glued, or fixed to a sculpture of large breasts. What an odd decoration, Shane thought. Set between the breasts, was a large doorbell shaped like a flower. With a sigh of impending doom, he pressed the bell and waited. From inside, he heard chimes playing, what sounded like a rendition of "Jingle Bells."

In the middle of April? Shane wondered. Finally the door opened and a girl with long, honey blonde hair greeted him.

"Hi, are you Sasha?" he asked.

When she nodded, he offered the small bouquet of lilies he'd brought.

"Damn, no black roses?" she said, taking them with a smirk.

"You know, they were just all out," Shane replied trying to laugh. Not sure if she was joking or not. She had on a sparkly bikini with a pager clipped to the waistband.

"Um, are you going out like that?" he asked uncertainly.

"Oh no, I was just cleaning," she said, as she led him to a sofa in her living room.

"Have a seat and I'll be ready soon." She swept from the room.

Shane looked around the room. The sofa he sat on was the color of eggplant. The coffee table was painted burnt orange and shaped like a kidney. Across from the large sandstone fireplace were 2 velvet armchairs embroidered with twining gold ivy decorating the dark red cushions. Nothing matched. On the mantel over the fireplace were an assortment of figurines and framed photos he could only assume were family members. Shane got up to investigate the figurines and was shocked to find they were of miniature internal organs. What in the world kind of person had he been set up with?

Finally, Sasha returned, looking like she was dressed for a funeral.

"Let's go," she said, grabbing a black lacquered coffin-shaped purse and heading to the door. They got into Shane's Jag and drove off. He was taking her to Olive Garden, he didn't know many people who didn't like it, so thought it was probably a safe choice. He parked and went around to open her door, like a gentleman. She got out and followed him inside and they were seated. Shane tried to strike up a conversation over the appetizer of breadsticks and salad, asking things like what she liked to do, type of music she liked and so on. She liked classical, enjoyed going to cemeteries, taking rubbings of tombstones, and reading about different funeral and burial traditions. As the evening continued, Shane's hopes for a nice date and possibly a new relationship sank like the Titanic.

Sasha opened her purse and brought out a tube of black lipstick to touch hers up, and as she opened the purse, it made a creak like the door of a haunted house. He shivered, just imagining what a person such as herself might carry in that purse, weird and morbid as she was.

"Hey, do you have any x-rays with you?" she asked, looking excited for the first time all evening about something.

"What?" Shane asked, astonished. Who in their right mind kept such things with them at all times.

"Um.. No. I don't," he answered finally.

"Oh, too bad. I'd love to look at them. The human body is just so fascinating!" she practically screamed. People at neighboring tables stared over at her before returning to their own meals.

"Want to go dig up some corpses after dinner?" she asked hopefully, eyes sparkling.

"No thanks," Shane said, trying to focus on his food and get through what remained of this dark and dismal evening. He reached for his phone and texted the friend who had set him up. His friend replied not long after, telling him he had picked up her twin who liked posing as her and must have intercepted the dinner invitation on her behalf and never told her about it.

"She's extremely unbalanced and weird. She's been to a couple of mental institutions and is home for a visit," his friend informed him.

"Okay, so what's her name and where is the real Sasha?" Shane wrote back, feeling like he'd been subjected to a slightly late and horrible April Fools' joke.

Noah told him that the real Sasha was appalled at her twin's actions and was truly sorry, and if he was willing to give her a chance to make it up to him, she'd take him out to dinner the following Saturday. Shane quickly relayed to his friend the types of questions she'd been asking.

"Sasha must not be taking her medications," Noah replied.

"Oh and the twin, the girl you accidentally took out, is named Callie." Shane sighed, feeling that he was truly ready to end this evening and waited as Callie slowly ate one small bite after another of her pasta.

"Would you two like dessert?" the waitress asked at long last when she came to take away their dishes.

"No!" Shane nearly shouted in relief.

"I mean.. No thank you," he corrected himself.

"What? No dessert? Am I that bad?" Callie snarled, her face twisting into a mask of rage. She reached for her purse, opening it with the same eerie creaking as before and drew out a blood stained scalpel. She lunged at Shane across the table, knocking over their glasses of drink, sending ice and soda across the table, running off in rivulets, and staining the carpet and Shane's dress pants.

"Someone call the police!" their waitress cried as both she and Shane tried to grab Callie before she could run for the door. Shane's night ended with two cops hauling Callie away in handcuffs and him going home alone. He texted Noah, the friend who had arranged this date with near death and declined the real Sasha's offer of a date, trying to be polite, but firm, that no, he would not like to meet anymore members of their family in the near future, and that he was sure she was probably perfectly sane, unlike her twin. But, that he was just not interested. He also, decided he would give himself a break from dating for a little while to recover. #MyWorstDate