If we’ve met in person and you filled out a comment card about that first interaction, I imagine it would say something like, “Well he tried hard, and he certainly smiled, but…”
I am not great at first impressions, so I try to learn everything I can from the people I meet. Last week, I came across three different women at Carrabba’s trying to make a good first impression for three different reasons and let me tell you – I learned A LOT. Since I never got their names, I took the liberty of naming them Jen, Jenny and Jennifer.
Jen
I drove straight to Carrabba’s after work last Monday to meet up with Deserae, and I sat for a few minutes after I had parked listening to a podcast, because sometimes I forget that podcasts are not live radio. This gave Jen enough time to stake me out. As soon as I started to open the door of my car, she caught up to me.
“Excuse me, I’m so sorry to bother you, but my car ran out of gas, and I’m with my kids, and I just need to borrow a few dollars to fill it up at the gas station down the street.”
“Of course!”
I said “of course” because Jen fit squarely into the second of three categories of people I lend money to: immediate family, damsels in distress and the U.S. government.
“Thank you! This is so embarrassing. Maybe like $15?”
“For sure! Hmmm, actually it looks like I only have a $20.”
Jen’s eyes lit up for just half a second.
“OK! I’ll just come back to the restaurant and pay you back after I get gas.”
“No problem! My name’s Dustin.”
“God bless you!”
I walked into the restaurant feeling like a real, live hero and told the hostess that when someone arrives looking to pay me back, I’m sitting over there. She nodded and smiled the way you smile at a child who tells you he’s going to buy a dinosaur when he grows up.
I sat down and proudly told Deserae how I had helped a distressed damsel.
“You’re not getting that money back.”
“IknowIknowIknow, but I really think she was telling the truth.”
“I mean, it’s fine. Just know that money’s gone.”
Actually, the thought that maybe Jen wasn’t being 100% honest with me did not even cross my mind until the “God bless you” at the end. Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that there are only two groups of people on earth who say, “God bless you” after you’ve done something nice: very old women and people trying to pull a fast one.
“We’ll see.”
Jenny
Our waitress Jenny came to the table and showed us the “Monday Amore” menu, which seems like an interesting marketing strategy consisting of the restaurant giving away six pounds of food for a nickel. For some reason, we thought that would be a good idea.
After a few minutes, Jenny came back, and Deserae went about her normal process of ordering a meal “inspired by” the menu. At the end of her order, she made the big request, “I’m sure you can’t, but can we just pay like a couple extra bucks and swap out the dessert that comes with this with the Sogno Di Cioccolata?”
The Sogno Di Cioccolata, according to the picture on the menu, is the greatest dessert ever crafted.
Jenny leaned in a little bit. “Every other server here will tell you no, but I got this.”
Cioccolata!
When Jenny came back to our table at the end of the meal with 7,000 calories of chocolate, she thanked us for ordering it. “I really like it when I get to break a few rules,” she said and grinned like she wanted us to give her an expired coupon.
Jenny was the best. I spent the entire meal glancing back at the door, waiting for Jen to give me my $20 back, so I could pass it straight to Jenny.
Jennifer
By the time our bread came, we discovered that we had hit the weekday restaurant jackpot: a first date in progress! Right behind us! And it was not going well!
Jennifer: “…They wanted me to clean the puke off the floor, and I said no. I just said no. I’m too intelligent to be working at Motel 6.”
Jennifer’s Date: “For sure.”
“So now I’m going to be working the front desk at the Crowne Plaza.”
“Ooooh.”
“I’ll get to wear a tie.”
For the rest of the meal, Deserae and I didn’t say another word. We communicated through eyebrows only. Here are a few of Jennifer’s greatest hits:
- “I’m too intelligent for this.” (x8)
- “You’re not masculine because you didn’t have that father figure in your life.”
- “I admire Hitler. I mean, I cried at the Holocaust museum, but…”
Jennifer made a number of missteps, but I would say the biggest one is that if you need to defend a statement with “I mean, I cried at the Holocaust museum,” maybe you should have kept that statement to yourself.
The Aftermath
Because I kept myself so busy following the trainwreck behind me and glancing back at the door, I ate everything Jenny gave me. And Jenny gave me a lot. I went through a loaf of bread. Then three pounds of calamari. Then a salad and another three pounds of pasta and chicken. It was only when the Cioccalata landed on the table that I realized how much trouble I was in.
Last year, I officially transitioned from the period of my life where I could eat six pounds of food with zero ill effects to the period where eating that much food brings ALL the ill effects. Without realizing it, I had entered the ill effects zone around the Hitler portion of the evening.
About halfway through the Cioccalata, Deserae stopped and watched me.
“You need to stop.”
“I can’t.”
“Then we need to go.”
“But what about my $20?”
“She’s not coming back.”
“Well maybe she’s…”
“She’s not coming back.”
“OK fine, but I can’t move.”
Deserae helped me get up, and as she was rolling me out the door, I gave my number to the hostess. Ya know, just in case Jen came looking for me. She wrote it down and smiled, but stopped short of asking if I wanted a velociraptor or T-Rex.
At home, I spent the rest of the evening lying still and sweating. While lying there, I thought a lot about Jen, Jenny and Jennifer. Even though they pulled off their first impressions with varying levels of success, they all ended up accomplishing the same thing:
Making me sick.
LIFE LESSON #35
A pukey aftertaste is much worse than a bad first impression.