I know you are dying to know about my love life, or loveless life, as the case may be. If you recall, I had a date in November, where I confirmed my online date wasn’t an axe murderer, so I decided to take another chance. He called and wanted to show me his abode, ten acres in the wilds of Montana. With snow. He emailed me a picture of the surrounding mountain range called the Crazies. Indeed, it was lovely, although cold and white, and I was headed to Montana for Christmas anyway, so I thought, what the heck? Go for it, Gail. He had mentioned that people our age should live bravely and beautifully, which seemed like a good idea. I wasn’t so sure what living bravely and beautifully meant, but I thought I should find out. I was on a blog vacation so didn’t have any deadlines, so I agreed to meet him for a dinner at his local restaurant, which wasn’t wildly far from where I was visiting.
I arrived early, ordered a glass of cabernet, and looked around. Pure Montana, with a herd of dead animals on the wall, a bar made of rough-cut boards, and country music serenading over the juke box. Bingo was just starting, and they turned Garth down and the emcee called out G-58 followed by I-18. The restaurant was jammed, and everyone except me had a Bingo card. It was eerily quiet with just the Bingo numbers being called, a few coughs, and throat clearings and a few seconds later, after B-4, I felt a cold hand on my neck and saw a cowboy hat being placed upside down on the table.
My date had arrived. Cold hands must mean he has a warm heart, and a cowboy hat means Montana. Upside down hats catch good luck. Suddenly he touched my chin and raised my eyes to meet his. Holy cow, he planted one my lips and somebody hollered BINGO! What the heck? Did somebody get a BINGO? or were they hollering at me. Was this what he meant by living bravely and beautifully?
The Bingo game had resumed, but he managed to catch the eye of the server, a bearded man of about sixty dressed in blue jeans and a plaid shirt, just like everyone else. My date ordered a non-alcoholic beer, Budweiser Zero, which I had never heard of, but any non-alcoholic beer sounds like an oxymoron. I was drinking wine; would he think I was a lush? Bravely and beautifully, I reminded myself, still not knowing what it meant.
My date guided me out of the center of the Bingo crowd to a table in an adjoining room and before long the waiter returned with the menu. It was your basic hamburger and French fry menu, but everything sounded good. I was hungry, so ordered the half-pound Montana burger and asked for salad in lieu of the sides of a pound of fries and mac and cheese.
Maybe ordering a burger, mac and cheese, and fries was living bravely, but I saw it as a heart attack in the making. I wasn’t that brave. The waiter rolled his eyes but wrote it down. When my date said, “Ditto,” I breathed a sigh of relief. The Montana salads arrived shortly, and were big, beautiful, crisp and colorful, everything a good salad should be with a tasty white dressing on the side. It took two more Bingo! calls to finish but I got it done.
Meeting a Montana cowboy for a second time was brave, no doubt about it, and so far, we were having a beautiful date. BINGO!
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