OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

I told my wife that she wouldn't particularly care for today's post. So, dear, you can skip to the last paragraph on this one now.

I was "between marriages", a state which seemed like a bad habit by only its second occurrence. I was never one who was a particularly "good" dater, so I suppose it was inevitable that I'd have a really bad one some day. Now was the time.

Not that I'd had much chance up to that point for "my worst date." If you've read my blogs, you know that I only asked one girl out in high school and that she said no. There were no dates in college until I went out with my first wife. And once I got someone to go out with me, I sure wasn't going to be doing any shopping around.

On my first "between marriage" outing, after getting over the severe depression of separation, it was only a few weeks before my wife's best friend's sister-in-law (who at time was 19, just slightly more than half my age) moved in with me (literally) one night after a party, the first party I had at my house since my wife had moved out. We were not separated after that until my second outing.

So, I was not much for dating. When my son recently detailed the number of relationships he'd had, on the one hand I was envious, and on the other horrified. I guess we're two different people living in two different ages. On the other hand, you'd think that I, living through the "free love" age of the 60's, would have more stories to tell. Well, actually, I do, but I really can't go into them here.

So, what does a man in his early 40's do when he's suddenly in the singles market again? I had little chance of meeting women. I didn't go to church at the time, there were no eligible women at work, and I had no friends to set me up. It's the mid-80's, so...

I lived in Edina at the time, so, quite unnaturally, I went to a bar on University in St. Paul. Now if you know the area, you'd know that it's a more likely place to find a hooker than a girlfriend. But I had a friend who played in a band, that's where he was playing, and that's where I went. A dive? You might say so. The women skanks? That word wasn't in use at that time.

Anyway, there were three women there, ranging in ages from late 30's to considerably over middle age. Now, these three were there every night, always hanging out together, a little phalanx of womanhood. No, I wasn't there every night, but you get to know how much people are at a bar by how well they know the others there. And these women knew everybody...Well.

So, I settled on the youngest. She was an overweight (but not horribly), rather plain, drunk. I'm not trying to be insulting, just honest. You don't hang out in a bar every night, usually closing it, and not have some trouble with alcoholism. But I was still dealing with the poor self-image of the recently divorced person that I was, so I figured she was good enough. Besides, I desperately needed some ego stroking.

I've never been a great dancer (never figured I had much use in the skill, given that I never dated), but she taught me that it's possible to come close to intercourse while moving on a dance floor. I'd heard of "dirty dancing" but never realized just how dirty it can be.

Well, she seemed like a fun girl, so I invited her out on a date. I think the whole concept might have been sort of foreign to her, but she was drunk enough to agree. I figured that dining out was fraught with the possibility of all kinds of problems, so I invited her out for later, for drinks and dancing. And so started the worst date of my limited life.

I picked her up and I could tell she was just as nervous as I was. Imagine, two middle-aged nervous people, both trying to pretend that everything is hunky-dory. Neither of us could wait until we could get some drinks into us. Anyway, I figured on upgrading her usual haunts by taking her to an upscale, yuppy, discotheque.

Talk about a fish out of water. She was so uncomfortable, her clothes were ill-selected for the place, the music was definitely not the type she was used to and, to boot, the place happened to be DEAD that night. After a very short while we decided to leave and, wishing to put her more at ease, I decided we should return to that bar on University.

So, I'm taking a woman out and taking her back to the place she would have been anyway. Except now we're together and her two friends don't know what they're supposed to do, sitting at another table, separate from us. Anyway, it couldn't last too long and soon they joined us and things just felt strange. Especially since, unbeknownst to me, they all three had some designs on me. That was something my wife told me later - more on that a little further on in this narrative.

Anyway, while we're there it began to rain. This was in early November in Minnesota so it wasn't a nice rain, it was a cool, wintery rain. At about one in the morning we decided to go get some breakfast. She knew a place that was open near her house, so we managed to separate ourselves from her friends, and headed out.

Since it was still raining I told her I'd bring the car around to pick her up, which I did. But as I pulled up to the curb and she dashed for the car, I didn't noticed there was a drain on the corner, one which my right front wheel fell into. Didn't think much about it at the time, just loaded my soaked date (it was REALLY raining) into the car and headed for the restaurant.

Well, no real problem until we finished breakfast. She was well known there, we had lots of people who wanted to talk to us and we didn't really even have to talk to each other much. But, in my mind was the idea that it was time to take her home (about 2:30 in the morning by this time) and concern for what I would do there. Anyway, that concern was taken from me because I had a flat.

There must have been something in that drain, something sharp, because it had punctured the side of my tire. It was a small puncture and the tire hadn't deflated fast, but it was certainly flat now. By this time it had stopped raining, but it turned out that wasn't a good thing. No, sir, not good at all.

As frequently happens in Minnesota in November, an Alberta clipper had come through while we were in the restaurant. The temperature had dripped about 30 degrees, from 40 to 10, and there was a stiff 30-mile an hour wind blowing. Man, was it COLD! And I'm standing there in a light jacket.

But I get out the jack, figuring on changing a tire. Now, I'm by no means handy at all, but I had changed a tire before, I did know how to do it. Except that this car came with a new kind of jack, one I wasn't familiar with, one which I absolutely could not make work. And every minute my hands were getting more and more numb (I didn't have gloves, of course).

After about 45 minutes of trying, I gave up. Although the restaurant was closed, some of the people were still there and I used the phone to call a cab for my date. Guess I wouldn't have to worry about what to do when we got back to her house. The cab arrived, I used just about the last money I had on my person to pay the cabbie. Now what?

By this time there was nobody around and I walked 2 blocks before I found a payphone with a phonebook. I called a place that had all night towing and by 4:00 I was finally back into a warm place, a service station. I was sitting there with a puzzled mechanic changing my tire, wondering why I hadn't done it myself as the jack worked fine for him. Well, I used a credit card to pay for everything and headed home, getting into bed at about 6 in the morning.

I never called Renata (that was her name, about the only thing I remember about her) again. Traumatized, I guess. Embarrassed, for sure. Later, foolishly, I returned to that bar, taking my wife on a date there to see my friend play. It was a mistake, but it gave her a chance to show up those three women, show them that she had me now. That's when I learned that my wife, nice as she is, is a normal woman.

The way I figure it, this date was God's way of telling me, "No, not her." He could have been a little less heavy-handed about it. Anyway, I decided the bar scene was not for me and shortly after that I encountered a dating service. It was through that service that I met my wife, something that might never have happened if I hadn't had such a disasterous date. Thank you, God.