“My name is Katherina, but everyone calls me Katrina, like the hurricane,” she said. “I don’t normally come to these things. Men aren’t really my specialty.”

This was the opening line to my first speed dating experience. This was my response: “So what is your specialty?”

A strap of her black dress fell off her shoulder as she shifted her weight. She was wearing flip-flops and no makeup, and she had sharp jade eyes. There were only brief moments of eye contact between the two of us.

“Web design,” she said. “I’m a technology free-lancer.”

She had soft lips, black hair, and a voice that could drag a sailor to his death. She enjoyed giving everything else in the room her attention, and I realized that I had to grab hers, capture it and give it a nickname. It was clear that I was in the presence of a worthy opponent, a female czar, a hellacious looking Hitler. And the game was set, the pieces were in place.

“A web designer,” I echoed. “That’s a male dominated field, I thought men weren’t your specialty.”

I turned my attention away and stared at a blond woman eating a pork sandwich at the bar. The sandwich screamed with grease as her teeth played against its flesh over and over. Her red dress gripped to her plump body like a man falling over the side of a cliff. She was the worst looking jealousy tool in the room.

Out of my peripheral I could see that Katrina’s attention had snapped back at me. It was clear that I had sunk one of her mental battleships. I had to strike harder if I wanted to gain some ground though. She was not going to give up this fight so easily.

“And what exactly does that have to do with anything?” she asked.

Those jade eyes were transfixed on me, causing sweat to invade the pits of my shirt. The blond woman began to walk away from the bar, away from me. Her backside resembled two large cats fighting in a small bag, and she had cellulite growing on her legs like barnacles on a boat.

“I just figure a gorgeous woman like yourself would be better suited in a field where your beauty could be seen,” I said, “like an artistic field or something in public relations.”

Katrina leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “Something where the woman is an image and not a person, right? Something where the man rules the business and there’s a Girl Pool in the basement doing the bitch work, right?”

I straightened my tie and cleared my throat for my response – a habit I picked up during my college debate years – but it gave her an opportunity to strike again.

“Because it’s men like you that caused this whole gender system, this whole back-and-forth battle, the reason people need this speed dating event to get by. People don’t just accept each other anymore. We’re all pigs-in-a-blanket now.”

“You’re gorgeous when you’re angry, you know that?” I responded.

She stopped talking at this point, but it didn‘t matter. I was too focused on her beauty. She had pointed cheek bones, thick thighs, and a frame that could melt ice-nine. And there was no doubt about it, she was something of fiction brought right into the reality of life, the reality of this world. I felt like at any minute I would find out that this was all just some dream of a retarded child shaking a snow globe.

“Are we almost done here?” she asked. “I thought these things were timed. How much longer do I have with you?”

I’ve heard of women playing hard to get, but this women was a master of it. It didn’t matter, though, she was mine and I knew it. She was caught in my charm and there was no escape. She was to be my wife and I was to be her husband. We would dance in the moonlight in our lakeside gazebo and our children would bring home straight A report cards. We would drive around town, showing off our Honor Student bumper stickers, buying our groceries from local farmers.

I got down on one knee.

“Katrina, hurricane, dear, will you marry me?” I asked. “Will you take me to be the man you have always craved, the man you have sought so hard to find, the man you came here tonight to find?”

This would be a good time to state that I am writing this from the comfort of my hospital bed. I was admitted for a knife wound to the thigh that hit an artery. I nearly bled to death on the floor of my first speed dating experience. It wasn’t anything too major, but it was enough to make me realize that hurricanes can cause some serious damage. I wasn’t even hit with a real one, I can’t imagine what New Orleans felt.

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