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“A salad?” I asked, “At the best pasta place in town?”
But he didn’t hear me because someone had just hit a foul ball, and he hollered out in protest.
I ordered an extra cheesy plate of ravioli, shaking my head at my horrible date. He barely touched his salad, but he ate 13 breadsticks. When the bill came, he put down a little over half the amount in cash. I wasn’t expecting him to pay. In fact, I was relieved because it didn’t set any burden of going out again. I gladly put my card on top of the cash, and the waitress sorted it out.
The biggest surprise of the night was not his car, lack of conversation, or genuine disassociation with reality. It was when he went to drive me home afterward, only to ask to come back into my apartment with me.
Um, what? No, thank you.
He may have implied he just needed to use the restroom, but appearances are important when you are a single woman. Plus, as my mother instilled in me from a young age, he could’ve been a serial killer.
I returned to work the next day only to find my entire office laughing it off that I wouldn’t let my date use my bathroom, and he ended up having to pull overon the side of the road. “I don’t see how that’s my problem or my business. There was a restroom at the Olive Pit.” The office went into a real uproar after that one.
Then, there was one coworker who hit on me once. I think so, anyway.Greg.A perfectly normal guy—worked in the mailroom—but chewed gum. I don’t just mean a piece, but many pieces at once. Multiple wads of gum, all chewing simultaneously, creating a horrendous brown color. He approached me one day and complimented my watch, but my eyes went straight to the heaping mass of gum in his mouth.
“I like your watch.”Smack, smack, smack.
“Um, thank you.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the gum.
“I like big faces.” He pointed to the watch.
I laughed a little at the random phrase.
Just then, he attempted to blow a bubble with the gum, but it got out of control, popped, and stuck to his nose. I was about to ask him if he suffers from crippling TMJ, but he pushed away his mail cart with no response as if nothing ever happened. Later, at the dreaded water cooler, I was refilling my bottle when someone asked me if Greg and I werea thing.
“What? No! Why would you say that?” If the look of disgust on my face wasn’t rude enough, my tone sent it home. I barely even knew the asker—Cynthia from Indiana. And I only knew where she was from because she had some sports team bunting on the outside of her cubicle.
“Because he said you were interested in him.”
“Well, I’m not.” I scoffed it off, no need for further correction, but found it increasingly disturbing that because I saidthank youwhen he commented on my watch, that being the only two words I’d ever directly spoken to him, he thought I was interested. My mother also accused Greg of serial killer-dom and warned me not to walk out in the parking lot after work alone since I might have a stalker.
“He’s delusional.” she’d say. “This guy—what’s his name? Ted? He’s created a fantasy land in hismind—a place I’d never want to go—that you two aretogether.”
“It’s Greg.”
“What is?” My mother was only half listening as I could hear her clunky, long acrylic nails pounding away at the keyboard. I assumed she was pulling up profiles of like-minded criminals.
“His name is Greg.”
“Whatever. You need to steer clear of this guy. Does he have access to your personal things—phone, water, house keys? Maybe you should consider changing jobs. This guy, Ted, could be pretending to charm you, but really, he’s just anotherBundy.”
“What do you think he’s going to do? Poison my water? Make copies of my house keys? Steal my phone and return it later after filling it with pictures of his feet?”
“Now you're starting to get it.”
From the pages of Katie’s Dictionary:
Paranoia
par″?-noi′?
noun
What every Millennial has since watching the early 1980s production, ‘Stranger Danger.’ See also: Motherly instinct.
It was then that I decided I wouldn’t get in too deep with my coworkers. My mother’s increasing wariness of Greg, whom I’d even started calling Ted, wasn’t the reason, though. I just came here to do the work that I enjoy. The party lifestyle of this office wasn’t for me, but it was a job that aligned exactly with my experience, paid decently, and came with an excellent boss, and, best of all, a three-week vacation every year to do absolutely nothing with it. It was good.
Snapping back to reality,I realized my teeth stopped chattering while waiting for my windows to clear. I quietly said a prayer thatthe right man would come into my life. I thanked the Lord for my many blessings and letting Him know my life was in His hands. I DO trust His timing! I took a deep breath and saw that I was going to be late, so I backed out of my spot, turned out of my complex, and onto the road.
