How To Suck at Sucking Up

Kelly spends a considerable amount of her free time running an animal rescue program in her home state of Arkansas.

Now, as we all know, people who run animal rescue programs spend an inordinate amount of time caring for and nurturing sick and injured animals, which says quite a bit about them.

They are, as a whole, an extraordinarily compassionate and nurturing set of individuals.

But who takes care of the people who run animal rescue programs? Who returns the volumes of deep love and affection they so freely dole out to injured animals?

Certainly not the animals. Believe me, I've seen animal rescue shows about ducks, and seriously, what a bunch of hoity toity fucking assholes those birds are. You try to mend a broken wing, and they act like you're trying to install a car bomb.

Kelly recently realized she deserved to feel a little of that love and affection coming in her direction, preferably from another compassionate, caring human being. She signed up on Match.com in hopes of meeting a nice man in her area, and lo and behold she found an interesting gentleman named John.

Kelly really enjoyed John's profile, and the two began regularly chatting online. Kelly found John quite attractive, and, according to his profile, he was exactly what she was looking for physically. He was "athletic and toned," and had beautiful, deep blue eyes.

Sultry, smoky blue eyes in fact, a pair of eyes in which she couldn't wait to take a dirty little skinny-dip.

"Through those eyes," Kelly thought, "I will see into John's soul."

Unfortunately, the more appropriate word would have been "sole," because once they met, Kelly found John's personality to match that of the quite unpopular, bland, bottom-feeding Ohio river fish.

Kelly had decided to meet John on her one-hour lunch break in case things didn't pan out, and right away those concerns came to fruition.

John arrived late in a wrinkled, dirty pair of jeans, which nicely complimented his soiled, slept-in T-shirt with saturated pit stains. He was athletic and toned in the way one might describe a sperm whale as "athletic and toned." His hair practically dripped with grease, and was styled in a manner that suggested a recent lightning strike.

Great, Kelly thought, I've just agreed to have lunch with a perspiring harp seal fresh from his mid-day nap in the Minit-Lube transmission pit.

Kelly stood up and walked over to greet John with a handshake, but John wasn't having any of that hand-shaking nonsense. He promptly enveloped Kelly in an uncomfortable bear hug, then released her only to place his arm tightly around her waist. He then pulled her close to his body as they walked back to their table, inspiring Kelly to pencil in "Clorox" on her grocery list.

In her letter, Kelly aptly described her first impression of John as follows:

"***shudder***"

Feel free to interpret that as a noun, verb, or adjective.

Kelly and John sat down to eat, and John creepily stared directly into Kelly's eyes throughout lunch. John told Kelly he had recently moved down to Arkansas from the Washington D.C. area, and then proceeded to inform Kelly that Southerners like her obviously had problems pronouncing words correctly because of that irritating Southern drawl they all used. When John later told Kelly the name of the town he had moved to, he pronounced it incorrectly. Kelly suggested the correct pronunciation, to which he replied "That's how your people down here pronounce it. That doesn't make it right."

Yeah, Arkansas, why you always gotta be so arrogant and shit!

The sputtering conversation then turned to Kelly's animal rescue program. Proud of her work, Kelly went into great detail about her job in hopes that she could keep the conversation somewhat interesting for the remainder of lunch. But John promptly stifled those efforts by criticizing the manner in which Kelly performed her job. "How on earth do you have the time to properly socialize those animals? You should really consider finding them homes."

Nice serve, John.

At this point, barely 30 minutes into the date, Kelly officially pronounced their one-hour lunch over. She gathered her things and began to walk back to her car with John in tow close behind. Upon arrival at her car, John forcefully grabbed Kelly and tried to plant a kiss on her lips. "I always kiss a girl on the first date," he said, "and it doesn't have to be on the lips."

Kelly used her snake impersonation skills to slither out of John's boa-like grasp, responding "What the hell? I just met you!"

With that, Kelly jumped into her car, slammed the door and locked it, and took off at what I surmise was a rather high rate of speed. Questions remain as to whether indeed there was a trail of smoke coming out of Kelly's ass.

Surprisingly, Kelly received the following email from John the very next morning:

Kelly,

It was a fairly good first meeting. I just could not resist the cuteness.

I also thought much of your conversation. Not only for its own sake, but in spite of how nervous you must have been, you struck me as very bright.

I confess to being surprised by the number of pets. Mostly because a very close friend of mine is currently living with a woman who has lots of dogs and cats. They were a large part of the reason I'm living here instead of rooming with him in Fayetteville. Not so much because of their number as that one large dog ate electronics, and none of them were properly trained. Being fair, they also lived in a small cookie-cutter house with a tiny yard.

I hope you enjoyed yourself enough to wish to see me again. I would definitely be happy to spend more time with you. Please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx

Hmmm.

Did John attend the same lunch date as Kelly?

Did he then actually just confess to her he really doesn't like animals, followed by asking her out for a second date?

Personally, if I was trying for a second date with a florist, I probably wouldn't start out by saying "You know, I really fucking hate flowers, but hey, you wanna go out again?"

Nonplussed, Kelly responded in a courteous and truthful manner.

"John, to be blunt, I did not feel a connection. Good luck in the future. Bye."

Take that, John-Boy.

Luckily, John had all sorts of dates lined up anyway. Or, so he claims in his follow-up email:

Kelly,

No offense taken there, stranger.

I have no idea what you expected from a short lunch. I am led to believe that first meetings like that are generally just to see if product is as advertised.

Anyway, I won't contact you again, but neither will I block you. Please wait a while to get back to me since I have other women to meet with and some job interviews besides.

John

Boy, Kelly sure was upset to find out she had to "wait a while" to "get back to" John. What exactly was she supposed to get back to him about again?

So anyway, looks like Kelly successfully extracted herself from John! He's not going to contact her again!

Unless of course .... oh, shit ... what's the name of this stupid fucking blog?

Dammit.

You knew it was coming.

You see, it seems John liked Kelly a little more than he cares to admit.

So just to let Kelly know exactly what she was missing, John decided to send a follow-up email to his last follow-up email, the one that ended with "I won't contact you again."

Now seriously folks, I know PLFM readers like the blood and guts and all, but as the author of this blog, I have to admit this is out and out one of the stupidest emails I have seen to date.

See if you can spot his sudden reversal on his attitude towards animals. I'll give you a hint: It's somewhere in the middle.

Take it away, John.

Kelly,

On reflection, there was no connection to be made and it was in part my fault.

Fearing messing things up, I decided to play conservative and presented you with a shell personality, bland, simple and I thought just enough to get to date 2.

In reality, you probably wanted to see the me that hid the little red foster dog from people coming to see him and his sisters so he could stay with us.

Or who ran back to Corgill a year ago while staying at a friend's apartment for job interviews with an orange kitten with an eye infection.

That, or maybe the me that left a party about 6 months to take a stray kitten to the emergency vet because it was obviously sick and had come to me, then stayed with it and made sure it at least had warmth, food and love before it was put to sleep because it could not be saved.

You might even have wanted the John who believes in silly notions of honor and obligation and never turns away the helpless who seek him.

I am sorry for playing a character.

Were I not, as shy as I am, upon seeing you, and how-- well, not like something in this world. Brighter, or like something pushed out from the background. I probably would have locked up again.

I don't think this will change your mind. In fact, had I any belief I will ever deal with you again, I probably would never have told you these things. This time, I mean it that I will not contact you again. I'll remove all ability to do so presently.

John

Wow, you scored a job interview with an eye-infected kitten?

Anyway, congratulations John.

You just successfully shoved your nose so far up Kelly's ass you could probably gnaw her collarbones.

Like my mother used to tell me, nothing makes a woman hotter than shameless and pathetic pandering to the same interests of hers you once insulted.

Oh, and Kelly wanted to point out one more thing.

Those beautiful, deep blue eyes that so attracted her to John in the first place?

Yeah, those were contacts.

Let me guess, his real eye color was ..... brown?

Great to be back folks, I might be able to squeeze in another post this week as I've got several good letters in the hopper.

(Note to Kelly: See? Not one Arkansas joke. You owe me five dollars.)