Operation Date Escape

gave a snort. “You must be confusing me with all the dates I’ve gone out on.”
    Nanci dragged her attention away from the bartender. “When are you ever going to accept the fact that no man is perfect? Though I will be the first to admit you’ve dated more than a few losers lately.”
    “Courtesy of you and my mother.”
    “Your mother’s picks were worse than mine.”
    “Not by much,” she told her. “My dates have ranked from bad to completely nauseating. And that’s putting it nicely. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you and my mother hated me.”
    “ Now you’re being overly dramatic. Your dates haven’t all been bad ones,” Nanci argued. “The guys I set you up with were pretty damn cute.”
    “Cute doesn’t mean they didn’t have flaws.”
    “Come on, Kelsie. Be real. What man doesn’t have some sort of flaw? No one’s perfect. Not even us, though we come damn close,” she added with a grin.
    Kelsie sighed. “I realize that. And I’m not looking for perfect.”
    “No. You aren’t looking for anything at all,” her friend pointed out. “And before you give me the old ‘I’ve tried’ story, remember this is me you’d be feeding that line of bull to.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Nanci sipped at her beer. “Need I point out that since your divorce you’ve been determined to find something wrong with every single guy you go out with?”
    Maybe so. But she wasn’t about to lose herself in a relationship again . Finding men’s faults before that happened kept her heart safe.
    Kelsie finished off the last of her wine cooler and then reached for the cold one Nanci had ordered for her. “I may not be looking for long term commitment, but that doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to be choosy.”
    Her friend offered an apologetic smile. “You know I only nag you so much because I want you to be happy.”
    “You sound like my mother. She was so distraught over the break up of my marriage you would have thought she was the one getting the divorce.”
    “She wants more for you than she had. That’s why she pushes so hard.”
    “Pushes hard is an understatement. And you’re not much better,” she said, pointing the open top of her wine cooler Nanci’s direction.
    “Hey, I’ve only fixed you up a few times . Your mother does it all the time.”
    “I think she’s going through some sort of mid-life crisis or something. Only her fear isn’t of getting old. It’s of never having grandchildren to dote on. So any single man that crosses her path becomes fair game.”
    Nanci laughed. “Don’t you think that you’re over-exaggerating just a little bit?”
    “You think so? I’m telling you, Nanci, I think my mother is losing it. She propositioned some guy in the meat market at Kroger the other day.”
    “That’s good, isn’t it? If she’s preoccupied with her own love life—”
    “ Not for her. For me! She asked him if he’d be interested in going out with her single, very attractive, successful daughter.”
    “ Ah, another prospective blind date to set you up on.”
    Kelsie nodded. “ Apparently the guy purchased a couple of really big sausages which my mother took to mean he was both single and sexually confident.”
    “ How did she come to that conclusion?”
    “ She assumes all men are big eaters, so two sausages would mean it was going to be dinner for one. And a man secure in his masculinity wouldn’t have any problem with buying sausages that might give his you-know-what a run for its money size-wise.”
    Beer spurted from her friend’s mouth. “Oh God,” she choked.
    “I know,” Kelsie said, handing her a napkin. “Can you believe the lengths she goes to find Mr. Right for me?”
    “I take it you and the ‘big sausage’ guy have a date set up.”
    “Thankfully, no.”
    “No? Let me guess. The guy was married?”
    She nodded, grinning. “Yeah, and he told my mother his ‘husband’ probably wouldn’t appreciate it.”
    Nanci burst into a fit of laughter. “Another excuse for your date escape list.”
    Kelsie dug in her purse , pulling out the notepad she carried with her everywhere she went. “I never thought about that. Pretend to be gay,” she muttered as she scribbled the idea down for future reference.
    “And married,” Nanci tossed out. “Just don’t ask me to play your wife.”
    “But you’d make such a hot wife,” Kelsie teased as she reached for her wine cooler.
    Suddenly , Nanci grabbed for her