Chapter One – Oysters and Manicures

There was something about the way he ate oysters that made me want to scream. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he was using a knife and fork, to begin with, or if it was the fact that he would stab an oyster with his fork before using his hands to pick it off the end and eat it - you know like a normal person.  Maybe it wasn’t that.
     Maybe it was the fact that I’d been staring at his hands for so long now that I had completely forgotten he had a face at all. The only real thing I could concentrate on was how my date, my self-diagnosed metrosexual of a date, was quite possibly more manicured than me.
     I was 24.  He and I were sat in an old-fashioned seafood restaurant, and as much as I don’t like seafood nor have ever liked seafood I still sort of appreciated the effort. Besides it was cheap and, for whatever reason, I was paying.
“So, how are you feeling tonight?” I finally asked with a mouth full of bread as I watched him stab an oyster like an angered Jack the Ripper in a Whitechapel Brothel. No response. “What lovely weather we are having aren’t we?” Another oyster. I looked out the window and tried to seem thoughtful. Our table was the one near the large polished window with a view of the local homeless man winking at me from across the street. Another oyster; this one was brutally torn in two and brought up for inspection. It didn’t pass and swiftly went into a not so little discard pile that seemed to have accumulated next to my own food.
     The clock on the wall – next to our 6:30 reserved table, the cheap one near the motion triggered singing fish that only played “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin – read 6:40. We were on starters. I’d guess a lighting strike or a sudden and unexplainable allergy to oysters would have to make do. Then it did. Sort of.
     The clock next to our table now read 6:45. It was around this time that Mark, my date, began choking violently on an oyster. This was because while using a knife and fork he had forgotten that he was eating oysters and had somehow managed to get through the chewing and swallowing process of regular food before succumbing to the sudden bodily shock of harsh reality: the one in which Mark Goldenberg, 32, Metrosexual and all around snob tried to swallow an oyster, shell and all.
     It was around 7:00 when the ambulance came. He didn’t need it but after a flurry of awkward stares; the hollow tin sounds of an automatic singing fish; a lot of aggressive Heimlich maneuvers from what seemed like a queue of people waiting to try, Mark had also managed to regurgitate the rest of his food and additional stomach acid all over his own clothes, my own clothes, and about five other people, causing a projectile like chain reaction that would have made any science fair mom proud. I patted him on the back, threw a $50 bill at the staff and a bit extra for the servers hoping it would cover everything. It didn’t and while I later found out that the food bill was only around $10 each I also needed to pay for carpet cleaning, a new tablecloth, and two pairs of expensive shoes. Mark did not help pay.