Fireman Edition (5 page)

Needing a mirror to see if my face has suddenly morphed into something different than I remembered it to look like, I was confused why he believed I didn’t look like that type of girl. I had one shot at romance with each guy on my list. I’d assumed if the beginning portion of the date went well, sex would shortly follow.

“Well, Mark, this is the way I see it. I’m here. You’re here. We’re both awkward and we’re not exactly here for the most normal of reasons, so…”

He smiled, leaning forward with interest in what I had to say.

“Let’s do it. Let’s get drunk. Let’s throw caution to the wind and let’s see if what the book says about dating a fireman is true.”

His eyebrow arched in question and I realized the error of what I’d just said.

“I mean, for me. Not you. Because you’re not dating a fireman. I am.” When he started laughing, my face turned a healthy shade of red and I could feel the color burning my cheeks. “I mean, unless you’re into that kind of thing, then date whoever you want. But for tonight…”

Reaching across the table, he placed a finger over my lips and my eyes widened in shock. Stephan did that to Mina. Maybe the book wasn’t lying after all.

“We can get drunk, Jane. And I’m not opposed to having sex. But I can pretty much guarantee you, it won’t be happening on top of the truck.”

To me, his words sounded like a challenge.

We’ll see about that…

. . .

Three bottles of wine and a few shots later, we’d boxed up every bit of caution we’d ever had in our lives and shipped it off to Timbuktu via overnight express.

Other diners and the wait staff had been staring at us with their mouths hanging open for over two hours as a result of the non-stop laughter erupting from our table. Neither Mark nor I gave much of a damn about the audience. At the moment, we were two crappy daters who had lost the awkwardness between us and couldn’t stop laughing about the cheesy one liners used by Stephan in the book.

Mark spit out a shot of wine when I pointed out the part where Stephan claimed his penis wept at Mina’s absence. That part alone had raised my eyebrow when I’d read it earlier in the day and it was useful to finally have a guy that could explain how it was even possible. I didn’t want to believe I was the only person who cringed at the thought of a drippy dick.

“He needs to wear adult diapers or he needs to see a urologist. Penises shouldn’t weep.”

“So, what you’re saying is that your penis doesn’t weep?” Yeah, I was beating a dead horse by asking the question, but I was three sheets to the wind and needed to confirm what he was saying. An inebriated mind couldn’t be trusted to remember useful information.

“No. Unless it’s aimed at a toilet, my penis doesn’t weep. I mean, he could be peeing on her, I guess, but that just seems…”

All the talk of peeing was suddenly making my own bladder scream out the warning of an impending flash flood. “The ladies’ room calls!”

“But we haven’t finished going through the book yet!” Mark laughed as he flipped through the pages of
Flirting with a Fireman
where it was laid out on the surface of our table.

“Screw the book, Mark. I think we’ve already established that there isn’t a damn thing in that book that’s true.” The words came out on a humorous slur, the wine having achieved not only sucking all the moisture out of my mouth, but also slowing down my nerves enough to keep me from speaking normally.

After pointing me in the direction of the restroom, Mark’s laughter faded away when I finally found the ladies’ room and let myself inside.

Stumbling towards the largest stall, I ignored the disabled sign and the fact that I was an asshole for using it when I could easily use the other, much smaller, stalls. Yes, technically, these stalls were reserved for those who needed extra assistance, but I enjoyed having the added room to move about. I opened the door with dramatic flair, which, in reality, meant that I misgauged how much strength it would take to open it. The door crashed against the wall.

“Whoa. That was loud.”

I didn’t know if I should be embarrassed or not, so I quickly peeked below the stall doors to verify that I was alone. Finding no feet, I was satisfied that my poor call in drunken judgment hadn’t offended the ears of any normal people attempting to relieve themselves in the room.

Walking back to the stall I’d chosen, I let myself inside and stopped dead when I found two toilets sitting side by side. “That’s weird.”

One looked like a normal toilet, but the other? It was the same height as a toilet, a similar shape, but instead of a tank and flush lever, there were three knobs.

“It must be a sink,” I said to myself, thinking out loud because that made the thought more official.

After using the actual toilet to relieve myself, I couldn’t understand why they would place a sink so close to the floor. How the hell was I supposed to wash my hands? I considered it for a moment, turning my head this way and that, like a dog. “It must be for people in wheelchairs?”

My brain wasn’t functioning properly due to the copious amounts of alcohol tearing through my system. Screw it, I thought, and got down on bended knee to wash my hands.

Reaching forward, I turned the knob for warm water only to get smacked in the face by a steady stream from the bottom of the sink.

“Son of a bitch!”

Water dripped from my hair and chin and I had a mind to go complain to the owner of this establishment for not only the placement of the odd sink, but also the fact that water was shooting out of the drain hole.

Turning the handle again, I kept it on low, washed my hands and felt slightly annoyed that there was no soap nearby. I’d be sure to complain about that as well once I was done. My throat was still parched from the wine, so I sipped some of the water and pushed myself back up onto my feet.

Walking by the full-length mirror on my way out of the restroom, I cringed to see my hair plastered to my forehead from the water. My dress was also wet and sticking to my skin. Mascara ran down from my eyes and I swiped at it in an attempt to clear it away. The attempt did nothing but smear the makeup a little further.

“Well, shoot.” Shrugging my shoulders, I left the restroom completely annoyed by the facilities.

Chapter Six

“Jane? What happened to you?”

Falling into step next to me, Mark looked me up and down as I made my way towards the large fire in the back of the dining hall. Reaching the hearth, I fanned my dress in the heat of the flames in a desperate attempt to dry out the silk. Mark reached out to peel the sodden hair away from my forehead and laughed to see the way my makeup now made me appear like a demented clown who’d escaped a mental institution.

“The sink spit at me.”

He gave me an odd look, but remained silent for me to explain.

“I’m not kidding. You would think for a fancy restaurant, they would make sure their restroom facilities were working properly.”

Grabbing a dry cloth napkin from a nearby table, Mark patted at my hair as I continued to fan my dress. Neither of us were thinking properly and continued to act as a two man comedy team for the amusement of the other diners.

“The sink
spit
at you. So, the nozzle sprayed, you mean?”

I looked up at him and smiled. “No. If the nozzle had sprayed, I would have said the nozzle sprayed. The sink
spit
at me. Water shot up from the drain hole right into my face. It was fine after I turned the handle only a little and kept the flow low, but the water was coming out of the wrong place.”

Still confused and slightly wobbling on unsteady legs, his eyes were narrowed and he laughed. “That’s impossible. Water shouldn’t come out of the drain when you turn the handle.”

“So you’re a plumber now?” Giving up on my dress, I tilted back on my heels to look at him – and subsequently realized that was a bad idea. When I almost fell back, my knight in fireman armor grabbed my shoulders and kept me from hugging the floor for a third time that evening.

Me and the floor – we were getting tight, you know?

“I’m not a plumber, but I do know something about plumbing and I’ve never seen water shoot up from a drain when somebody turns the handle.”

He didn’t believe me and I didn’t like not being believed. Grabbing his hand, I said, “Fine. Since you’ve never seen it, then allow me to be the first to show it to you. Five bucks says I’m right and you’re wrong.”

Two drunken people on a mission – that was Mark and me as we made our way to the ladies’ room, letting ourselves inside without bothering to consider the fact that there might actually be someone using the facilities.

A scream and a healthy dose of cuss words later and the woman who’d been in the restroom left in a hurry, while Mark and I remained inside laughing our asses off.

Sure, we’d attempted to apologize and Mark even mentioned the fact that he was a fireman and had seen women in all states of undress, but the haughty bitch wasn’t buying it.

“We need to make this quick. I suspect…” Staggering for a second, I grabbed his arm to steady myself. “I suspect…” The word kept coming out wrong, the distinct sound of ‘th’ replacing the ‘s’. I was suddenly talking like a cartoon duck and Mark’s cheeks were burning pink with his amusement.

“I think… Ha! Got it!” If you can’t pronounce an S word, then switch to the sound you can pronounce. That’s lesson number one for the nights when alcohol has limited your ability to behave like a normal human being. “I think that lady is going to tell on us.”

“Good point. Let’s make this quick. Show me the sink.”

I marched in the direction of the stall and found the offending sink staring up at me with innocence gleaming on its handles. “There it is!” I pointed it out like a child identifying the little demon who stuck gum in my hair on the playground.

Mark didn’t rush forward to avenge me and I turned around to find that I was talking to the stall door. “Mark?”

“Which sink is it?”

“It’s this sink!” I yelled back. “In the stall!”

“I’m standing by the sinks, Jane. Which one?”

I heard water turn on and off and wondered what the hell he was doing.

“None of the sinks are spraying. Which one?”

Like Dumb and Dumber, we were stuck in a slapstick routine of miscommunication. “This one!”

“Which one?”

This was going from bad to worse. My head was killing me as the alcohol took hold of my body and was now gripping my skull within a whirlpool of swaying images. Lacking depth perception and the ability to balance myself on two legs, I kicked off my heels and marched back out into the main part of the bathroom.

“Which stall are you in?” I yelled.

“I’m by the sinks.”

I turned in a circle – and then regretted it when the room kept spinning even though my body had stopped. “There are no sinks! The sinks are in the stall.”

“Come around the corner, Jane. The sinks are back here!”

Kicking each of the stall doors open, I tried to figure out the exact location of
back here
.

“Jane? You okay? I’m back here!”

How big was this bathroom? “I’m afraid I can’t find you, buddy! I need more direction!”

“I’m by the sinks!”

“What the hell is going on in here!” A man’s voice boomed through the room, bouncing off walls and making it sound like the voice was coming from everywhere. If I hadn’t been so damn drunk, I might have thought it was a neat trick – like the wizard in the
Wizard of Oz
when they first entered the Emerald City. I always thought the wizard was pretty badass.

Knowing we were in trouble, and out of the little bit of self-preservation instinct I had left, I ducked into a stall and tried to hide by climbing up on a toilet. Still stumbling around like a pregnant woman on ice skates, my foot slipped and splashed into the bowl.

It was amazing to me how I always ended up with my foot in a toilet.

“Sorry, Sir. My date was just trying to show me a sink that she swears sprayed water out of the drain when she turned the handle.”

Mark came to my rescue, but neither man could see me where I was perched. I wouldn’t move due to my embarrassment and the fact that I now had a foot soaked in toilet water.

“This is a ladies room, sir. And, you’ll have to excuse me if I’m incorrect about this, but you are NOT a lady.”

“But, my date…”

“I see no date, sir.”

Well, shoot. Mark was in trouble.

Pulling my foot out of the porcelain throne, I half stepped – half squished my way out of the stall, leaving a trail of small puddles in my wake. “I’m the date.” Raising my hands like a thief caught, I surrendered.

I recognized the man as the owner of the restaurant. He smirked in my direction. “Why am I not surprised? It’s the lady of extraordinary grace.”

He was mocking me. I was sure of it.

“I’m sorry, Mister, but we’re only in here because he didn’t believe that one of your sinks was shooting water out of the drain when I turned the handle.”

Suddenly feeling indignant about having been squirted, I crossed my arms over my sodden chest and stamped my squishy foot on the ground. “You, sir, owe me an apology for your ramshackle facilities. Your sink attacked me and I’m in my nice fancy dress. You would think for the high prices you charge for the food around here, you could afford to maintain the plumbing!”

Yep.

I screamed at him.

I’ll admit it.

With a pretentious wiggle of his nose, the owner stepped back away from me. He was probably concerned that I was nuts.

“Please show me this problematic sink, Miss, and if it does, in fact, shoot water out of the drain, I’ll be sure to comp your meal in order to pay for the loss of your…” His hand motioned up and down to my clothes. “…fancy dress.”

“That’s right, you will.” I was happy to win the argument. “The sink is in the big stall.”

His eyes widened into large saucers. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Did you say the sink is in one of the toilet stalls? We don’t have sinks in the toilet stalls.”