Minch's Summer of Love: Chapter 5

The Second Date Curse

Second dates have always been something of a problem with me. For a while, the problem was that they just wouldn't happen. We'd have what I would consider a good first date, and then I would never hear from them again. I remember a couple years ago I went on a date with this red head (shut up, I have a thing) we had dinner and went to see Inception....Pretty good right? I feel like that's a solid itinerary. The next day I sent her a text asking if she had to work. To this very moment, I never found out. What's worse, this was the better part of the Second Date Curse...

The Second Date Curse took an ugly turn the last couple of years. There was this stretch where midway through the second date, the girl I was with decided she hated me. HATED MY ASS!!!

(Oh, Minch. You're over exaggerating...)

The hell I am! Here's a few stories,

I was on a second date with this girl, I don't know, let's call her....Beverly. The second date for Beverly and I consisted of dinner and a movie (Date Night, that was the least of our problems.) Dinner seemed to go perfectly fine, but I had overshot the time and we had a little extra time to wait for the movie. I don't know if was something I said, I did, or thought about doing, but Beverly shut down the moment we got into the theater. Didn't talk to me. Didn't respond when I talked to her. What made this truly nightmarish, was that we were at an independent theater so there were no cartoons, commercials, and behind the scenes movie whats-its to break the silence, only a loop of about 20 slides that we must have watched 80 times...in dead silence. There was a Simpsons episode where Marge says the line, "This date night is worse than the date night we watched Date Night." I lived that joke...

Then there was a second date last year. Let's call her Josephine. Josephine and I had our first date at a Mexican restaurant. As nice a place as it was, in retrospect, dates at Mexican restaurants are asking for trouble. The date itself went perfectly mediocre, and I kind of figured there wouldn't be a second one...meh! Then I got a text from Josephine the next day, much to my surprise. I mentioned that I was thinking about going to the East End Fest* for the first time ever that Friday. Oddly enough Josephine said she wanted to come along. So we made it our second date...

*For any of you reading this beyond the Rochester area, the East End fest is a summer time event that takes place the first Friday of June, July, and August. There's music, there's beer, and more than anything else, there's douchebags and douche-baguettes. I had never been, and wanted to at least see what the fuss was all about.

So we met up and walked in, I paid admission for both of us, as I am a sweetheart. We made our way to the beer truck when Josephine kind of scoffed and said, "I'm not going to drink tonight." That phrase alone is fair and acceptable, but it was said in the same rhythm and cadence that you would say, "Eat shit and die, you whore from Hell." What followed was roughly an hour of Josephine being a pisspot. Everything was terrible, stupid, and beneath her. After an hour, we both decided we should leave. Okay, I may have decided to actively try to annoy her on the way home by pointing out everything and saying, "Hey look, there's a ______. You like that!"

"Hey look, there's a dry cleaner. I know how you love dry cleaning. Want to stop in?" 
"Hey look, there's a used book store. I know how you love The Babysitter's Club."
"Hey look, an Arbys, want to stop in for Arby-Q's" 

Okay, perhaps not me at my most chivalrous, but I believe it was a necessary evil. So with all of this back story, I'm sure you could understand any trepidation on my part setting up my second date with the girl from Chapter 3. It was kind of spur of the moment. I had spent the entire weekend at the movie house, and what could only be described as a symptom of Stockholm Syndrome, I wanted to watch a movie. I decided to try and make it a date. There are two significant things here:

1) Second Date Curse (see above) 
2) First Ever "Home Game" - I don't bring dates to my own theater. 

I really don't have any concern bringing girls to meet my family. Fran is friendly, and my brother and sister both have significant others that can curb them from being dickholes. So it's pretty low risk. On the other hand, bringing them to the theater? That's scary. It's like taking them to meet your second family, your "Hills Have Eyes" family (depending on who's working.) Fortunately, everyone on that evening was quite acceptable,. though I did have to warn the concession employees to be on their best behavior. 

We went to go see Brave (in 3D, I pull out all the stops.) This isn't a terrible surprise for the late show of a cartoon, even a Pixar, but the theater was completely empty. Completely. Trust me, I looked around to see if Joy and Vince were somewhere in the theater spying.

Something kind of crazy happened at the end of the second date...we were still speaking to each other! Pleasantly, no less! And talking about going out again! In one shot, I knocked two monkeys off of my back. For those of you wondering, the movie is quite good. 

Curse Broken...FOR NOW!!!                

Chapter 6 is going to show up quicker than you imagine. It's like one of those movies where they film two back to back, but not terrible like The Matrix sequels. Thanks for all of the support and your continued reading. Feel free to share this, or any of your favorite MVW's on TwitterBook or Insta-Face by clicking the links below.

Thanks,
Minch 

Minch's Summer of Love: Chapter 4

Game Time (I forgot these thematic title cards last chapter, dammit!) 

7:52PM- Why the hell do I always end up showing up to these things so early? What the hell am I supposed to do for the few minutes, sit in my car and be nervous?

7:58 PM- I walked into Starbucks, I went right past the line and picked a seat with an optimal sight line to the door, so I could see when she walked in.

8:00 PM- Okay, here we go. Any second now...

8:07 PM- ...the Hell? Why isn't she here yet? I hope none of these hipsters have noticed I'm sitting here coffee-less and alone. Nah, they're too busy listening to Tom Waits and bitching about how "Invader Zim" sold out.

8:15 PM- I'm going to text her. [Hey Where Ar---INCOMING TEXT] 'Hey where am I' she asks? I'm at the God Damn Starbucks in Greece just like we agreed. Oh no...

8:17 PM- I realized I was at the wrong damn Starbucks...

Three years and some change later I sat towards the front of the bar reliving that nightmare and at about 8:02 PM the thought crossed my mind. Maybe I was at the wrong bar...again! Before I could give this any legitimate thought, my date arrived. We sat at a table and started going over the familiar talking points we had discussed in our back and forth messaging. I remembered she mentioned she didn't like beer, so I had assumed she'd be getting some frozen fruity bullshit drink. The type that had half a pineapple on the rim of the glass. Her order of a Jack and Coke was a pleasant surprise.

Beyond the realm of drink orders, I'm not going to get into specifics of the date. Just know the conversation was flowing well, jokes were hitting, and then I had a surprise cameo.

Joy, the lady who bullied me into suggested I start a blog and her husband Vince were seated in the booth directly behind my date. While this honestly wasn't a big deal, I was trying to remember if I had told her where Date Night was taking place. I even floated the theory this was all a nefarious plot to filter play by play to her daughter/loyal fan Alyssa (Happy Birthday, btw!!!) Honestly I had bigger fish to fry as I had just accidentally sling shot a few drops of my drink onto my date because I was fiddling with my straw...I am an asshole.

My overall grade for the date you ask?

Larry's face isn't selling this well, but I mean this positively.

Date Night 2: Revenge of the Fallen has been discussed but isn't yet on the books. Which is good, because I have a weird history with second dates. The last 3 or 4 second dates have resulted in my date deciding she hates my ass, and stops talking to me midway through. But those stories are for Chapter 5

The Problem With Putting Your Shit On Blast

The sheer volume of questions about my date that I got the following day was unnerving. Mostly because this is the complete opposite of how I used to play this sort of thing. I used to have this weird hang up about online dating, and if I even admitted I was going on a date, I'd lie and say it was a friend of my friend Callie. Now I'm in this bizzaro world where movie house staff ask me how things went (then I politely respond with, none of your God Damn business.) People who I would have never imagined reading this thing are starting to take a look at it.

That said, if this is your first time around, read this classic MvW, Vanek at the Disco

The reason why I've been so secretive in the past is the potential for failure. If I go on a date, tell no one, and it goes hideously, then it's just between me and Jameson Irish Whiskey. With this master plan, it's all out there for the world to see, warts and all. That has been something of an adjustment for me, but honestly, the only way I was going make progress was to drag myself, kicking and screaming.

Hey did you read my latest Pop Tart for Eat Your Serial? No? You son of a B... Well, you should. It came out on Father's Day and it's a look at some great TV dads. Also I think I uncovered the dark truth about Danny Tanner.

 Here's the Link! Give it a read!!!   

Thanks to everyone for continued support. Feel free to share this, or any of your favorite MvW's with your social medialites. The links are below. More News as it comes in.

Thanks,
Minch      

Put Me In Coach 2012

Long before I was bullied into starting a blog, I used to write notes on Facebook. This is the one I wrote last year around this time. Since the message is still the same, as are my thoughts and feelings on the subject, I want to give it the full blog treatment. I could probably start a whole new piece about how as a kid, I used to be bored to tears when Dad was driving and his music was on the radio. Now, ironically enough if any of his bands (Boston, Journey, REO Speedwagon, Aerosmith) come on the radio, I’m jamming and head bobbing like the Roxbury guys on bath salts. That’s for another time. For now, please enjoy “Put Me In Coach.”

 

Even though I look like an idiot, Dennis looks like the Devil, and my uncle looks like he's about to say something inappropriate, still one of my favorite pictures.

 Happy Father's Day
-Minch 

I have known that this would be the topic of my second entry for a while, but I have spent a great deal of time mulling over how I wanted to approach this. Bringing up my old man is still a sensitive subject for some, and I cannot stress enough that I don’t do so looking to elicit any type of sympathy or to evoke sadness. Rather, I’d like to take a moment, as Father’s Day approaches to introduce many of you, to a man you never had the pleasure of meeting…

My father could care less about movies. He’d wearily dose off while any sitcom was on. He didn’t read books, nor did he smoke or drink (As a man who worked for a liquor distributor, he wasn’t against it, it just wasn’t for him.) My Dad did two things, busted his ass daily at two strenuous jobs, both involving a great deal of heavy lifting and late nights, and enjoyed every aspect and element of sports.

Baseball, Hockey, Football, you name it! Every passing season had some sport attached to it. For baseball, my father was just a fan of the sport. He liked the Orioles because of their affiliation to the Rochester Red Wings. He liked the Blue Jays because of their proximity to us. My mom recently told me that he never liked the Yankees. No disrespect to my friends who are fans, but I cannot tell you how much this meant to me.  For both hockey and football, obviously, Lets Go Buffalo. I watched my father suffer through the on going tragedy that was 90’s for Buffalo sports.

As a dumb ass little kid, I really wasn’t much for sports. My mom will gleefully tell you about how during my ill fated little league days, I would come off the field between innings ask her to make a pit stop at the 40 and 1 Youth baseball concession stand. I was more interested in movies, TV, and for a thankfully short time Star Trek (I have LONG since washed my hands of that phase, replacing it with alcohol and girls). So in terms of interests, the old man and I didn’t have a ton of things to connect on.

When he passed in late ’99, the sheer reaction by the public helped me understand what he meant to everyone, a pillar of strength, heart, and a beacon of what someone should aspire to be, but even then I was still a teenage dumb ass. I think everyone has a moment in their lives when they finally GET their parents. Where the proverbial light bulb goes off and you realize, “Oh, that’s what you trying to do…thanks” Unfortunately, he wasn’t around when I had that moment…but the story doesn’t end there.

There came a point, seemingly out of nowhere, a long dormant strain in my DNA suddenly activated. I wasn’t just watching Red Sox games because I didn’t want to fight with Dennis over the remote, but because I wanted to. An interest in baseball, hockey, and football emerged from within, as if it had been my destiny all along. Christ, I have a Red Sox tattoo!!! Every once and a while, more often than not I think about him as I’m watching a Reds/Cubs on WGN for the hell of it, knowing that 15 years ago it would have been torture for me. And don’t even get me started on the Sabres, I tie my love of that team directly to him, and I can promise you this, WHEN they win the cup, I will be a mess, and I’ll be thinking of him. There’s no doubt about it, I am my father’s son.

So Happy Father’s Day. I hope for those of you in my age bracket, you’ve already had your, “Oh I Get it.” moment. For you youngsters out there, don’t worry, you will.
 

Minch's Summer of Love: Chapter 3

I begin with the unofficial/official theme song for "Minch's Summer of Love" as performed on "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson"

Okay, that out of the way, I have a date Wednesday. I probably should back up shouldn't I? Okay, I'll start again...

April 6th 1983: Lightning struck the open mouth of hell and I arrived on this planet. What, too far? Fine, let's fast forward to this past Tuesday.

Tuesday is schedule day at the movie house. It is a day I approach with a joint feeling of optimism and apprehension. The fate of the weekend rests on this moment. The bossman and I have had a silent agreement for ages. I close Friday nights and have Saturday night off. Frankly, only one weekend night off keeps me honest. This schedule was different, in a most sinister way. I was closing BOTH Friday and Saturday. The truce has been broken! Ready the soldiers! WE MARCH AT DAWN!!!

Needless to say I was a touch miffed by this. Among the great many reasons why, it would give me no chance to further my Summer of Love endeavor---By that, I likely mean go to Paddy's, get discouraged, and drink a boot full of whiskey. Hey, my weekend is my weekend!

So I trudged through my two weekend killing shifts, armed with nothing but my hair trigger temper. Then, something weird happened. Around 4AM, I was woken up by the familiar sound of my Droid's battle cry.

"Okay, who's drunk/in jail?"

It was nothing like that. It was a message from someone on the dating site. It was funny, well written, and far more complimentary than I deserve. One problem, there was no photo... Why wouldn't someone have a photo? She must look like Gargamel. Oh no, am I that shallow? I mean, this was a really nice message. I should at least talk to whoever wrot...

Oh wait, never mind everybody! I didn't "enable links and pics" on my Gmail. Sorry, there's a pic here. Give me a break, it was 4AM. She doesn't look like Gargamel...

Thank God

Throughout the course of the next day, we had a really great conversation. While I solemnly vow to protect the privacy of others on here, while completely disregarding my own, I will drop in that she works as a place where I have often shown up dressed like a homeless person...

Paddy's? (No.)
A Strip Club? (No, of course not jackass)
FuddRuckers? (You're not even trying, and I'm not telling)

Basically, the list of places I feel comfortable going to in slippers just decreased by one.

 I've found the trickiest part of talking to someone on a dating site, is making the transition from online conversation to actual date. It's pretty much an "All in" move. Move to quickly, she assumes you're a murderer. Wait too long, she loses interest and likely ends up with Meatball the Lunkhead (my favorite Christmas Carol btw). Within the span of a day, I pushed in my chips...

...and I have a date on Wednesday.

By no means is it time to hang the Mission Accomplished banner. In fact, we're not even at the point where you should be looking up banner stores. Though it's a step in the right direction. Hey can you guys help me with something? I can't decide which shirt to make my date shirt. Have a look and feel free to share your thoughts on which one you like best...

 
Nice little suspenseful cliffhanger we have here, eh? Before you get Chapter 4, there will a special thing on Friday AND my brand new POP TART over at Eat Your Serial on Sunday!!!! I'll warn you, it's about TV dads and Danny Tanner is involved. Neat huh? As always feel free to share this or any MvW with your Facebook friends and Twitter folk. Thanks!

Minch   

Minch's Summer of Love: Chapter 2

What?! You didn't read Chapter One? Class, I'm disappointed. Here click this...

The Bear Market. (No that's not code) 

Some crazy things have gone down since I decided to "put myself out there" and blog about my adventures in the dating scene. For starters, some guy got all strung out on bath salts and ate a homeless guys face! Which makes sense, because it is after all a homeless guy, and finding decent meat on him is going to be a struggle. So naturally, this got all the zombie fan boys in a tizzy and...

What? Has anything relevant to this blog happened since last week? Well sort of, I'm finding that the single market seems at first blush, kinda bare (Dammit Obama!) I have been using two sites to try and drum up some dates. The first is a pay site. There problem there is that it always looks like I'm looking at the same ten profiles. I have turned profile shopping into a science. After looking at the pictures, I look at the "What She's Looking For" section. This may prove problematic...

What She's Looking for

Body Type: Athletic and Toned = Okay, never mind. Where's the fun in that?

No Preference= Liar 

Slender = Pfft, enjoy your future emo BF

About Average= Hmm, closer...

A few extra "Biscuits"= Yes! We are in business! Proceed to Round 2 

Round 2 is a general overview of the profile. I look for troublesome buzzwords like, "Yankees Fan," "Five kids," "Back Mole" or "Nazi Sympathizer." Assuming this is a person I share a few interests with, I proceed to the final round, check the last time she was on the site. If it's been longer than a week, I assume the game is over and she's already on the beach with the Old Spice guy...

Scott Pilgrim is in trouble...

If she's on the site regularly, I send one of my patented Ice Breaker messages. 

...and as soon as a one of them respond, I'll let you good folks know.

Moving to the free site. This site, put nicely, is like the bottomless pit of depressing hell. I have noticed a trend on there though, roughly 70% of the ladies on that site, have furiously angry profiles! Their pics are of them scowling. Their description page says things like, " I'm sick of the bullshit and drama, so assholes better leave me alone..." 

What the hell? Do I owe you an apology for something? All I did was read your profile, but I'm going to go ahead and say sorry anyways, as I feel like that's the best way to not get stabbed. Look, I am sure roughly every single lady on that site has received some inappropriate email from some dipshitted lunk head, but the answer isn't to put up angry bitch wall. Then normal guys see that and say, no thanks. That's your tip of the day from Ray. Here's a typical free site profile pic...

IT CANNOT BE UNSEEN! IT CANNOT BE UNSEEN!!!

What About The Real World?

With no real fail safe in case the websites don't work, I suppose I should at least start reexamining my policy on flirting/hitting on/talking to girls out there in the real world. For those of wondering, my policy is DON"T. This is my game in a nutshell...

Let's say, I'm at a diner (just pulling that out of my ass, don't read into) and there is a cute girl working. I honestly feel like the last thing she wants, is another one of her dick headed customers hitting on her. Not to mention, I've either just ordered something gross and fat, or it's 2:30 am and I drunkish (likely both.) Am I wrong here? 

That's where we end Chapter 2. Feel free to share this with your social mediatlites by clicking the links below. Your continued support is always appreciated. 

-Minch

This One's Going into OOOOOOOOVERTIME!!!!

Hi, I decided to add an addendum to this one since I'm not ready to do a whole new chapter yet, and I have a fun story to share from this past weekend. It essentially sums up everything I've been saying...

Saturday night I was coming home from celebrating the birthday of one of my dearest friends and former Fat Guy Friday co-host Dave. The relatively quick turnaround between the end of my work shift that day and the start of the party prevented me from having a proper dinner, (He said, trying to justify getting a garbage plate.) So I decided to swing by one of Monroe County's fine eateries that sell garbage plates. That's when this happened...

I was at the ass end of the line, when two ladies walked in. The taller, (and drunker) of the two saw fit to comment on my choice of head wear for that evening...

"RED SOX SUCK!!!"

Ugh, here we go...

"Aw come on. They try their best..."

Note: Since I was responding to a harmless drunkish girl, I gave a softball response. A "Bro" would have received a hearty, "Gee, Thanks Buster Olney!"

"I'M JUST KIDDING, I LOVE THE RED SOX!"

Okay, I have no idea what's going now. As she went off to make a phone call, I started talking to the other girl, (the sober-er) one. We were talking about her being, "drunk bus." Very shortly in Taller girl comes in yelling, "HE'S NOT ANSWERING. ASSHOLE! I'M LEAVING A MESSAGE"

*BEEP* YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE, YOU ASSHOLE, ANSWER YOUR PHONE! YOU'RE NOT ANSWERING YOUR PHONE, LIKE AN ASSHOLE, OKAY BYE.

Me-I don't want you to think I'm ease dropping, but you are going to feel really strong about that voice mail tomorrow. I think you nailed it.

(Shorter girl laughed)

THAT WAS A BAD MOVE, WASN'T IT?

She went off to leave what would likely be an even worse apology message. The other girl and I continued our conversation. Now, I say this with no level of arrogance, if anything this series should really lay out just how riddled with self doubt I am, but my jokes were hitting. Every now and then I get a really good beat on who I am talking to and my brand of BS seems to be working. Not often, but it happens. Speaking of things happening, that's when this happened...

In Walk The Bros. Three of them. The Bro-iest Bros who ever Duded a bro. Their sights were set, on girl I was talking to. Now their approach was a little different than mine. I tried to use whatever charm and wit I could muster to engage in a conversation that would be both enriching and delightful. Their tactic was to be overly aggressive and rapey. To their credit, neither of the girls seemed wildly interested in these clowns, or their demands to be hugged...yes, that was a thing...and no, they didn't know them...thus "Rapey."

Outnumbered and not overly invested in the idea of getting the crap kicked out of me. I took my plate, which I had ordered to go anyways, and went home. To me, this was the personification of Hulk(s) vs Cookie Monster, and while I'm not trying to sell I had the love of my life stolen from me at garbage plate hut, I did have a stirring wake up call as to how aggressive my competition is, and taller, and musclelier, with more hair. This is going to be a long road, but that's all right...

I'm the God Damn Cookie Monster, bitches.