You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again Read online

  Santa Barbara called me during the week and said his ex was doing better but that he stayed there all night on the couch. I didn’t know what to think. The guy I’m about to lose my virginity to is stuck in some sick codependent relationship with a suicidal supermodel. We attempted to make plans midweek, but then he remembered he had “something.” We made plans to go out Saturday night. I didn’t hear from him on Wednesday or Thursday, so I called him Friday and tried to sound all casual. “Oh, hey, it’s Heather. Hope you had a good week. I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you—I’ve been soooo busy. Looking forward to seeing you Saturday. Call me.” I didn’t hear from him Friday night, either.

  Saturday morning, instead of looking forward to my date, I started to wonder if he was going to cancel. I put on my light blue biking shorts and matching sports bra and walked down to Whole Foods. I checked my voice mail from the store—nothing. When I came home, I checked it again—nothing. I called a girlfriend and gave her the lowdown and we tried to decipher what it might mean.

  As the sun began to set, I could not believe I had been stood up. My mother told me a story about when she was stood up for some ball in college. She got all dressed up and waited and waited. The next day, she saw the guy and decided to act like nothing had happened.

  “Why didn’t you say, ‘Hey asshole, I got a dress and did my hair and you didn’t show up. What happened?’”

  My mother said, “No, I didn’t want him to know he hurt me.”

  She also told me never to order ribs on a date. The ribs I agreed with but not her philosophy about not letting the guy know he hurt you.

  So I came up with a plan. Earlier that day, a passenger plane went down. It was horrible. I knew he wasn’t on it, but I just had to get him to call me back. So I called him up around nine p.m. and said, “I’m sorry I’m just calling now. I thought I knew someone on that plane and then I realized I never heard from you and we had plans. I hope and pray you did not know anyone on that plane. Please let me know you and your loved one are OK.” OK, that was a horrible lie. Believe me, after I hung up, I knew every nun, priest, and karma-preaching yoga instructor would have been appalled, but I was desperate.

  Sure enough, he called the next day and said, “Hey, um, wow, you thought you knew someone on the flight? Hope everything is OK. I, ah, I laid down around seven and I fell asleep. Yeah, I fell asleep. Sorry. Call me.”

  That’s all I needed. He could have gotten laid that night by a virgin but instead decided to stand me up. He called me twice after that, but I did not return his calls. This out-of-work soap star was not worthy of the Heather McDonald cherry pop. I don’t know if he was frustrated waiting for me to put out and said forget it or if the suicidal swimsuit model got a new prescription and they got back together. All I know is that I’ve only seen him in one commercial and one guest spot since, and I watch a lot of TV, so he’s not exactly setting the world on fire. Knock on wood, I haven’t been in a plane crash yet, either, but it is a dream of mine to survive one solely because of my excellent swimming skills.

  After the Santa Barbara debacle, I decided to join Great Expectations. It should have been called Lowered Expectations. Great Expectations was a dating service. Unlike the online dating services today, Great Expectations predated cyberspace and was supposed to be the best singles bar ever. It was also very expensive. They videotaped every member, so along with personal profiles, a prospective suitor could see how you acted and spoke on video before deciding to go on a date with you. It cost over two thousand dollars to join. My parents and my friends thought I was crazy for wanting to do this at the age of twenty-five. But that was exactly why I wanted to do it. I explained, “I want to get married and have kids, and I don’t want to wake up at thirty in a panic. I want to start weeding out people and only date men who fit my criteria and want to get married.” I also thought it would lend to stand-up material and new characters for me at The Groundlings. I planned to watch videos of some of the dorky women and later impersonate them in a sketch. But to my dismay, I learned after joining that I was only allowed to view videos of the opposite sex. I guess they didn’t have a gay division yet.

  A week after joining and recording my video, I went into the Great Expectations offices to see if anyone had chosen me. To my surprise, eighty-four guys had. Even though my profile stated that I was looking for tall, educated, attractive men between the ages of twenty-five and forty, I seemed to get a little of everything. I was supposed to look up each guy’s profile to see if it interested me, then find his video and watch it. Their filing system was more difficult than the Dewey decimal system used by public libraries. After spending hours rejecting ugly, boring people, I began to actually answer the question as to why I was rejecting them in a multiple-choice checklist. I’d check age if they were eligible for their AARP card, I’d check religion if they were Muslim, and I’d check education if they never went to college. Then the rejected suitor had the option of sending me a letter through Great Expectations. Some of those letters were nice, but some were downright nasty.

  One read: “Heather, I saw your profile and you said you were Catholic so I thought youd [sic] be nice but instead your [sic] mean. You said you didn’t chose [sic] me because of education. Well, I find that colege [sic] people are some of the most meanestest [sic] people out there. You’re un-christian [sic] like and just a big meenie [sic] and your [sic] not even that preetty [sic].” Need I comment on that one?

  The next day, I walked in and told the woman at the desk who informed me that another 104 men requested me that I was totally overwhelmed and needed to quit. I guess no decent-looking twenty-five-year-old woman had ever joined. It was as if I was Megan Fox and had suddenly posted a profile. I asked the receptionist, who was attractive and had a sense of style, “Look, I can’t research all these people. Look at me. Is there anyone on this list I would be interested in?” She looked at all 104 names and circled two. I then automatically rejected the other 102 by checking “conflict of hobbies” just to get through it quickly.

  I imagined some rejected suitors were confused, thinking who has that strong of an aversion to stamp collecting? I went to look up the two guys she recommended, which took me a good twenty minutes to find. The first one was twenty-nine, in sales, and looked pretty cute. But in his profile he wrote that he was a very devout Mormon and always gave at least 10 percent of his gross salary to the Church of Latter Day Saints. I was more bothered by the amount of money he was giving away than the possibility of one day having a sister wife, even though it would be nice to have someone help milk the cows and tend to all the children. I rejected him based on overgenerosity.

  I had once gone out with a Jewish lawyer who was hot and fun, but on our third date we went into a pizza joint and I suggested getting the Hawaiian pizza. Granted, it’s a pretty disgusting pizza with ham and pineapple, but I had always loved it. He said, “I can’t get that.”

  And I said, “I know a lot of people are grossed out by the pineapple with tomato sauce.”

  He replied, “No, because of the ham. I keep kosher.”

  “Like you have two dishwashers and two refrigerators in your home at all times, that kind of keeping kosher?”

  “Yes, I do.” After finishing my piece of vegetarian cheese pizza, I knew I’d never see him again. Jewish is one thing, but keeping kosher is just too Jewish for me. A guy who keeps kosher is going to want to marry a Jewish girl or one who would convert. The last thing I wanted to do after twelve years of Catholic school was take a bunch of classes and tests on a whole new religion.

  The other guy was Victor. In his picture, he was standing in between a man and woman with his arms around them, wearing a nice black trench coat and—bonus—he was taller than both of them. Then I read his occupation: Orthopedist. Oh my God, he’s a doctor! I continued to read as my heart began to beat a little faster. He was thirty-seven, not bad, only twelve years older than me, no kids, never been married, and then the icing on the cake, religion: Catholic. I told my
self that this has got to be too good to be true. I filled out the card, allowing the service to give Dr. Victor my phone number. Within hours, my phone rang and it was Dr. Victor calling from an airport. My first thought was, Wow, this doctor is really eager to meet me—so much that he couldn’t wait to get home to call me. Maybe it’s because we are meant to be together. We made plans for him to pick me up at my house a few days later. I was now renting a place with my sister and another girl, Susan. It was in Brentwood and a stone’s throw away from the O.J. Simpson crime scene. Even though it took place years earlier, people still parked in front of our house to walk across the street and take pictures.

  Dr. Victor arrived on time in a brand-new Porsche, which really blew the doors off Jason’s old, tired Porschette. I felt like it was a good sign. We went to the Hollywood Bowl, where he had box seats, and we drank wine, talked, and danced. The date could not have gone better. So what did it matter that Great Expectations was a bunch of unattractive desperate losers? Neither of us were, and we found each other. It only takes meeting one person, if it’s the right person, to last a lifetime, and the two thousand plus dollars I spent would be more than worth it.

  Dr. Victor and I had a lot in common. For example, he had no desire to ever go camping, and neither did I. Dr. Victor was smart, of course, but not an intellectual snob by any means. We joked about what to tell people about how we met, since neither of us wanted to admit it was through Great Expectations. For some reason, I liked telling people that he approached me at the self-service gas pump while I was filling my tank. He didn’t like that, probably because it sounded like something sleazy that would happen at a truck stop.

  On our third date, I went to his house in Hermosa Beach, a few blocks from the water. He admitted to hiring a decorator, who had done the place in a Southwestern theme, with cactus statues everywhere and a color scheme of mint, light peach, and cream. It was pretty tacky, but that is what a new wife is for—to redecorate, right? All day, he kept saying he had a surprise for me. So far, surprises from the men in my life had been pretty disappointing, and this was no exception. He had two tickets to go to the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach.

  The last thing I wanted to do was sit in the audience at a comedy club on my one night off from doing stand-up. But he thought he was being really thoughtful. Some guys thought my comedy aspirations were futile or that they were in fact funnier than me, which was seriously annoying. Other times, they were overly into it, wanting to see me perform all the time, asking questions about it, or worse, admitting that they, too, wanted to be a stand-up. This wasn’t totally a bad sign for Dr. Victor, so I just told him that I was tired, and we watched Fatal Attraction, which is hands down my favorite movie. I know it’s not the most appropriate film to watch with someone you are newly dating, since Glenn Close goes crazy, boils a rabbit, and wields a knife, but I didn’t care. Besides the fact that I love the classic film genre of infidelity, there’s her New York white apartment and lines like, “I’m not going to be ignored, Dan.” Thankfully, it didn’t seem to freak Dr. Victor out that I was obsessed with a movie about a female stalker—and that I acted out the scenes verbatim—another gold star for him.

  Prior to meeting Dr. Victor, my sister Shannon, our roommate Susan, and I planned on having a housewarming party, since we had just moved in. I had no intention of inviting Dr. Victor. The thought of having to introduce him to all of my friends as just someone I was dating (we weren’t exclusive or anything) was not something I wanted to do. He wouldn’t know anyone, so I’d have to babysit him. Besides, there would be no chance of me meeting or hooking up with anyone else, so I just didn’t mention it. But a stupid friend of mine who knew a friend of his did.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d gotten in trouble for not inviting people to parties. There was the time the booker of a stand-up room inside a topless strip club got all offended that I didn’t invite him to my birthday party. Since he was disgusting and tried to convince me to audition for amateur night on the main stage where the chicken wings were served after my ten-minute stand-up set in the smaller peep show room, I didn’t feel our relationship called for an invitation to my birthday party. To get me back, he stopped booking me at the very prestigious “Fantasy Island.” I felt the same about Dr. Victor. Having him there would stress me out, and I wanted to hang out with my college and Groundlings friends. I tried to explain it to him and that he wasn’t missing anything, but it was difficult to hear him over the blaring music and laughter in my house when he called.

  Before our next date, as I applied my lip liner, I had what Oprah would call an “aha” moment. I did not want to go. I just wasn’t into him. He was great on paper, but the initial excitement had worn off. After dinner, he brought me home and we kissed a little on my bed, and I was so not into it that I pretended to fall asleep, so he eventually left.

  Shortly afterward, he threw out his back and was all annoyed that I didn’t offer to come over and make him soup and play nurse. Again with the soup! He told me he had an upcoming surgery for a deviated septum, which in layman’s terms means “Hello, nose job.” I was a little creeped out that a thirty-seven-year-old man was into plastic surgery, especially since he also divulged that while he was under he was going to get liposuction on his love handles. Maybe because he was an orthopedist, he struck some deal with the plastic surgeon to swap services. His nose was better than mine to begin with. I’ve always had a bump on my nose, and around this time, I was working in real estate. I was showing one of our listings to a doctor who was known for doing the “lunchtime nose job.” At the end of the showing, he got really close to me and whispered, “So when are you going to call me?” I was appalled because he was married and his wife was literally within earshot of us, so I said, “Doctor, I am flattered, but I don’t date clients and certainly not married ones.” He said, “No, I meant for your nose. From the moment I met you, I’ve been dying to get you in my office and straighten out your bridge.” Now, if I was able to get past that humiliation and live with the imperfect schnoz God blessed me with, why couldn’t he?

  In my sorority, during a chapter meeting, three of our members from the same high school all turned to the side at the same time to look at something, and they all had the exact same nose. It was freaky, like a Twilight Zone episode. Obviously, they all went to the same local plastic surgeon, but it made a strong impression on me. Also, there can be so many ramifications. Like when two contestants from the TV show The Swan, where they have multiple plastic surgeries, met, fell in love, and procreated. They looked all cute with their turned-up noses, and their baby came out looking like a bald fifty-year-old accountant. It was all just too much. I decided to stop calling Dr. Victor back, figuring he’d see the writing on the wall. But he didn’t get it. Instead, he called every day for two weeks straight, leaving me messages like everything was great between us.

  “Hi Heather, it’s Victor. I’m still recovering from my surgery, but after the bandages come off, I want to take you to dinner. Call me. My office is … my home is … my cell is … my pager is … my fax is …” One day I walked in on him leaving yet another message on my answering machine, and this time it was different. After weeks of not returning his calls, he said, “Heather, I hate to do this on an answering machine, but I don’t think it’s going to work out between us.”

  I yelled back at the machine “Oh, ya don’t! Why? Because I haven’t called you back after fourteen messages. Nothing gets past you!”

  He continued leaving his message: “To be perfectly honest, I think you are a little immature for me and quite selfish. The fact that I not only threw my back out but underwent two surgeries and you still failed to provide any comfort for me was a real turnoff. I think you are selfish and a bit snobbish.” As I was listening to this, I couldn’t believe that a man his age had still not learned proper voice-mail etiquette, which is to never leave a message you may later regret. So before Dr. Victor could do some serious damage, I picked up the phone and said
, “Victor, it’s Heather.”

  “Oh hi, Heather. How are you?” he asked very nicely.

  I then answered, “I guess snobby, selfish, immature, the list just goes on, doesn’t it…”

  He interrupted. “No, I just meant... I don’t know what happened. Everything was going so great, and there was that night when you clearly wanted me and I could have done whatever I wanted to you, but I was a gentleman and left.”

  “You could have done anything you wanted to me if you were a rapist. I fell asleep,” I clarified. “Look, you clearly don’t get hints. I fell asleep because I didn’t want to have sex with you, and I never returned your calls because, let’s see, I didn’t want to talk to you,” I yelled.

  “Fine, well good luck to you then,” he said.

  “Well, good luck to you, your nose, and new svelte middle section,” I replied and hung up.

  Fortunately, I never heard from or ran into Dr. Victor again. Even though I never set foot in the offices of Great Expectations ever again, it continued to haunt me in the form of letters from rejectees asking me to please reconsider going out with them. Or a few times a strange man would approach me at Starbucks or at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and ask, “Are you Heather?” At first, I’d get excited, thinking it was a Groundlings fan or a potential real estate client who was familiar with my face on the bus benches. Then I’d realize from the weird look in his eyes that it was from Great Expectations, and I’d have to quickly think on my feet. Thanks to all my improvisational training, I once said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not Heather.” Just then, the barista yelled, “Nonfat vanilla latte for Heather!”