Loving Anne

The time is October 2002. I decided to give the world of online dating a try…in this case Match.com. Browsing through the Match profiles, I came across one that had no photos at all, but was uncommonly well written and quite funny. One part of it read, “I like cat juggling, gasoline fights, and I can milk anything with nipples.” The first two parts I was pretty sure were movie references to The Jerk and Zoolander but I didn’t recognize the third. I wrote her (“SeaTowner”) a message saying that I thought her profile was pretty funny and that I recognized The Jerk and Zoolander, but what was the third reference from? She wrote me back saying it was from “Meet the Parents” (which I had not yet seen for some reason). She said her 30-day free trial for Match.com was about over and she wasn’t going to pay to renew as the only other guy she had met was way too into ferns. She gave me her e-mail in case I wanted to keep chatting.
 
E-mails led to phone calls which led to setting up a date for drinks at Mapleleaf Grill, a bar and eatery just up the street from my (old) house. I arrived first and a few minutes later, Anne breezed in the door. We had a great time talking and ended up having dinner as well. We talked a lot about movies that we had or hadn’t seen. I asked her if she had seen Dick? She scoffed a little. She had heard of it but had assumed from the title that it was just some stupid low-brow movie. I told her I thought it was a pretty smart comedy about two ditzy girls involved with Nixon and Watergate and that it was hilarious, and given what I had learned so far about her movie tastes, I thought she would probably like it. I told her that I had a big screen TV and Dick on DVD and we could watch it after dinner if she wanted to keep the date going. She agreed and followed me back down the street to my house. We made some popcorn and watched Dick together and she agreed it was hilarious. She drove home after the movie, and I left a message on her machine for her to hear when she got home, saying what a great time I had with her.

When recounting how we met, we will sometimes tell people that I showed her Dick on our first date. Anne likes many kinds of humor including the sophomoric kind.