You know what I love? Those stick-figure families that people put on the back windows of their cars. How special it is that they have a family. I mean, a family! How amazing is that? Amazing enough to put it on the back of your car window. It is wonderful how they proclaim their unique talents to reproduce. Thank you so much for telling us you have a family, and how many members there are in that family, and that each member of the family has a name. I just wish they would tell us more rather than leave us wondering. Do they have homes or apartments? A stick-figure shelter should could let everyone know. What about an income? Maybe a stick-figure dollar sign too, because having a job is just something you should shout to the world. Yet there is so much more. Do they have friends or a restaurant they like to go to? Or maybe they like to see movies. A stick-figure theater could answer that burning question. Please, all you stick-figure family people, don’t stop there. Tell us all about you, because I know when I am on the road, I want to know more about the other drivers on the road. That is why I love to see the stickers on windshields that tell us how proud they are of where they park. Yea, really nice parking spot!

OK, so this happened several years ago. It’s my blog and I’ll write if I want to. Plus this is one of those humiliating experiences that need to be shared with the world, or at least with the three people who accidentally came across this entry while Googling “chump,” “dumbass” and “Jesus, what a fricking idiot.” (Not that this is the only thing that appeared; no doubt there are hundreds of entries at also include the phrase “George W. Bush.”)

I had an opportunity to speak to one RH (though the events that follow are true, RH is just narcissistic enough to Google her name every day, and I really don’t want to come up on her radar ever again, thus I am going to leave it RH). She was sponsoring an upcoming event and me, as a reporter for a major metropolitan daily, had just a few questions so I could write the kind of two-inch brief that has sadly defined my career over the years.

Warning sign No. 1: She was hiking through a local preserve when she answered, explaining she carried a cell phone not because of an emergency, but because she just loved to use this time to talk to friends, because she had so many of them and so little time to “share a few minutes of me.” Warning sign No. 2: She freely admitted this.

We talked about the event for about 10 minutes and then, impressed by my sense of humor (she said this later, I swear, when it was clear nothing else was measuring up), she started asking me questions. How old I was (fairly). If I had any kids (one). If I was married (that’d be a solid no).

Then she asked me out. Now if were testifying under oath, she would say something like, “I didn’t really ask him out. It was more of an implied thing.” Because RH is not a woman who needs to ask guys out. And that is exactly the way she would state it under oath.

The conversation was now 45 minutes old, and no end was in sight.

“So you should drop by my place sometime, we can go out and continue this conversation,” RH said. “I’d really like that.”

Recognizing a date was being implied, I said, “OK, sounds like fun.”

Jesus, what a fricking idiot. Which was pretty clear when Warning sign No. 3 appeared: She asked me how tall I was.

“About 5-8,” I said. Was there shame in my voice? Yes, because 5-8 is going to seem pretty short to a woman who asks your height.

“Oh, well, you’re not boyfriend material, but I still want you to come over.”

Warning sign No. 4: She truly, honestly said that.

I may not have been boyfriend material, but I thought that since we were hitting it off, maybe I could be one-night stand material. Even then I doubted it, but since was the very first time in my life that a woman implied a date, I was all over it.

We made plans for the following Tuesday. She gave me directions to her condo, then we’d go somewhere nearby for dinner. Splendid.

I showed up at the appointed time and was struck by my utter shortness when she answered the door. Maybe she couldn’t play center in the WNBA, but she was certainly forward material. I had never dated a woman taller than me because chicks don’t dig short. That’s just how it is. Tall women find tall guys and have tall children. Professional basketball is proof of that. So let’s just move on.

“Hi, nice to meet you.” I said that, not her as she wondered if I should be removed from the “non-boyfriend” pile to the “non-existent” pile. Apparently she didn’t want to be that rude, positioning the “See what a good person I am” bar pretty low. And for good reason as I would find out.

RH (a very attractive woman, by the way, not that there is anything wrong with that) suggested a restaurant less than a mile away. “It’s one of my favorite places. I know you’ll like it.”

We climbed into my car (“Watch your head’) and were off to her version of Cheers, where everyone knew her name.

Warning sign No., um, you know, it’s really not important at this point: She immediately recognized nearly everyone at the bar, each dressed in suits and sipping Scotch (no doubt single-malt, 21-year-old Scotch, by the looks of it; damn these Dockers of mine).

“Wow, it’s way busier than normal,” she said, scanning for a place to sit. “There, in the corner, let’s try that table.” We navigate among well-dressed men to the table around the bar and to the back. As soon as we sat a waitress appeared. RH ordered wine. Not sure of the make or vintage, only that it wasn’t the house wine.

“What beers do you have on tap?”

I did not say, “Whoops, I think I just crapped my pants,” even though that is how the waitress now was looking at me.

“We don’t have any beer on tap,” she said. “But we have some in bottles. Heineken, Amstel Light, and maybe one or two more, I have to ask the bartender so I’ll be-“

“No, that’s OK, a Heineken would be great,” I said. I did not say, “Oh my god, I am so sorry for inquiring about an inferior beverage,” but that is what my expression said.

RH waved to someone at the bar. “Hold on here just a second, I want to go say a quick hello to someone, be right back,” and suddenly her chair was empty.

OK, well, I could wait. For example, I wait all the time when I go to my dentist, watching how certain procedures can change those with Carnie Mouth (three teeth left, all of htem horribly rotted) into a beautiful smile. It’s done with quick fade-ins, which imply there was some sort of easy, painless and inexpensive work done in between.

Minutes passed. The drinks arrived, the waitress deftly placing a napkin below the glass of wine, then tossing the bottle of Heineken in my general direction. She held a juice glass in her hand.

“No glass, this will be fine,” I said, knowing the tiny glass might only emasculate me further.

Do I drink? Or wait? It would be far more polite to wait. More time passed. Soccer was on a small TV above the bar. I pined for dental videos.

About a half hour later she returned. “I want you to meet a few of my friends, come on,” she said, taking her wine. Her height really came in handy at this point, allowing me to track her through the crowd as I grabbed my beer and slid out of my chair and around the table, so by now she was already 20 feet ahead of me.

She sat at the bar between three men in their 50s. I stood behind her as she made introductions. There was John the developer, Tim the doctor and Ted the financial analyst. I do not really remember their names, but their occupations remain quite clear to this day. John was in the middle of this really huge custom-home subdivision where prices were amazingly low, you should definitely stop by if you were in the market before everyone realized just how far $850,000 could still go. The doctor just took on a new partner, so he had a lot more time to spend on his boat in San Diego. The financial analyst was tired working 60-hour weeks, but he could put up with it knowing he’ll have enough to retire in just a few years, if only his wife could understand that.

No one actually told me this. I gathered this among the conversations RH was juggling. Obviously she had a lot of experience at this.

All of them were plucking various finger foods from two platters on the bar in front of them. Not sure what they were, but they looked crustacean-based and not something designed to go with beer, not a deterrent to business since I was the only one with a beer in my hand.

“So, you build houses,” I said to John, catching him as he and RH just happened to be chewing at the same time.

I did not say, “So, John, you were arrested for child molestation not too long ago,” but that is how RH looked at me.

“Oh, no, John doesn’t build them,” she said. “I think you did that years ago, didn’t you John? When you were a contractor? John’s a dealmaker, the guy who finds the land and gets everyone together on it. John, tell him about those parcels you found up north, the ones everyone thought was out in the middle of nowhere, the ones that now have hous3s overlooking a lake and a golf course.”

“John, those are yours?” said Tim or Ted. “I was just looking up there for my brother, he and his wife and looking for a second home and love this area …”

I listened for another beer or so (yeah, I ordered a second one, secretly hoping the waitress had to go to a supermarket to pick up a six-pack), my eyes almost straying to the soccer game, but I wasn’t that bored. Yet.

“We’re going to continue this over at the bar,” RH said as the four of them stood as one. Did they practice this? Synchronized “Let’s get the hell out of here”? They were very good at it.

“I thought this was the bar.”

“No, the other bar. The more intimate bar. The owner bought it a few years ago because this place was getting so crowded. A nail salon went out of business to he grabbed it and opened up an annex. It’s perfect.”

At this point I wondered, is it a date if you don’t have dinner and never really say anything?

I pulled out my wallet to clear our tab (two beers and, what, three wines? Four?), but RH said the tab was being transferred.

We exit out the back and cross the parking lot that is crammed with large black sedans. Not only do people drink the same Scotch, they all drive the same cars. This must be where Stepford Executives drink.

(Actually, turned out that John Ashcroft was eating with a phalanx of Secret Service men in a private dining room above what I now called The Annex, which also explained the two men in dark suits standing at the bottom of the stairs, whom I assumed were waiting for a spot next to RH at the bar.)

New scenery, same old conversations. About an hour later, John left, shortly followed by Tim and Ted.

“Well, guess we should settle and get out of here. I’ve just got to visit the powder room, be right back.”

I sat at the bar for the first time and was served immediately with the bill. I glanced at the total and thought at first that the waitress did go to a supermarket for my beer, which was in another county and she charged me mileage.

Then I looked at the itemized portion. Not only was I paying for my two bottles of beer, but also for drinks and appetizers consumed by the developer, the doctor and the financial analyst, as well as wine ordered by my “date.” Who was in the “powder room.”

I paid it like a chump.

I took her home, she said it was late and hoped I didn’t mind not being asked to come in for a nightcap, and I drove the 27 miles home thinking that if anything good came out of this, it was that my dating life certainly couldn’t get any worse (I was partially right).

She called me the next morning, thanking me for a wonderful time. “We had such a great conversation, we really seemed to connect, don’t you think? I’d love to do it again.”

“Sure, sounds great, but how about this time I just drop off my Visa card so I will be there in spirit.” No, I didn’t say that, but I really wanted to.

No, we didn’t go out again. No doubt I went from the “non-boyfriend material” pile to “non-entity” pile. And that was just fine. I did not need another opportunity to be a dumbass.

Epilogue: A few months later a friend at work was doing a story on RH, since she had a fairly interesting occupation: matchmaker dealing exclusively with men making at least six figures per year (women had only to be young and attractive). I had told him about the “date,” and he casually mentioned to RH that I might be a candidate for her service. “No,” she said without hesitation. “He’s too mainstream.”