Well - Part XII

I stayed with Jennifer that morning until she had to get ready to go back into work. I had to get my act together and head on back towards the city. I called my sister and got my lecture (I think she’s taken over for Mom now in being one of my primary sources of guilt). I returned to my sister’s house to pick up my things and then headed south to “hearth and home.”

My thoughts almost immediately strayed to Cheryl as I drove down the major interstate south. I was very disappointed that circumstances ran afoul of my opportunity to perhaps have my first real date with perhaps my first real love. I also was a tad embarrassed that I had sought out and actually consummated a “one night stand” with Jennifer. I wasn’t particularly proud of those actions but I couldn’t deny that it was something I surely was seeking that lonely night.

Last time I attempted to take a dip in the dating pool…back in the Pleistocene era, things seemed to be simpler. Now, there are more dangers. STDs can actually be fatal in this day and age. Beyond that there is so much technology involved in the dating scene. You can meet via the Internet, in a chat room, through some paid service that will assess compatibility characteristics. Meeting in a bar was almost passé anymore. Developing any kind of “opening line” strategy has now become embedded into programs and documented into any number of self-help books that could possibly fill several library shelves.

I think I have become the dinosaur here.

What ever happened to the enthusiastic, idealistic romantic that I was back in my high school days? Maybe the answer was that people never really do change and I wasn’t really as idealistic or a romantic as my memory seemed to suggest.

When I got back to my apartment on that Sunday night I took some time to actually clean up. Housework wasn’t something that I paid much attention to but it seemed like the thing to do in this instance. I might have been wanting for a distraction to take my mind off the being alone again in the city with nothing much going for me.

The workweek began with the usual pomp and circumstance. I went through “my morning routine” with all the relish of prisoner on death row taking the last mile walk. The workday was filled with no real challenges therefore no real problems and no real satisfaction that I had actually accomplished much when I punched out and was walking back to my subway stop. Before I actually started down the stairs to the platform for the ride back to my neighborhood, my cell phone rang.

The number wasn’t coming up with any hits in my contact list so I didn’t really know who was calling. I clicked the phone open and said: “Hello” in a resigned tone of voice. I wasn’t sure who would be on the other end so I was more than a tad surprised when I heard Cheryl’s voice.

"Hey Jim, how's it going?"