To commemorate our first date, we returned to Blind Owl Brewery, where we had met face to face for the first time seven years earlier, the final step after surviving a gauntlet of initial online dating site chats, then the exchange of personal email addresses, then an actual phone call, until I was deemed text worthy.
Our 2017 Blind Owl meetup blazed the trail for “Scrynne,” the jokey moniker we assumed once the longevity of our relationship started stretching like an irreversible smile. Scrynne – like married movie stars with first names merged to conserve headline space.
Scott + Brynne = Scrynne: a mathematical equation written in the stars of a constellation dotting a private galaxy of love.
It was much better than the alternative: Brynne + Scott = Brott. “Brott” sounds so wrong in so many ways. Belligerent even. Brott sounds like something eaten by heart-clogged Germans.
Scrynne slides off the tongue tip, sweetly, like a bubble of nectar that forms when thumb and forefinger pinch the base of a honeysuckle stem and daintily coax its threadlike pistil from its goldish white bloom. Scrynne – the sound of Cupid’s arrow in flight.
Having homefield advantage, Brynne had to drive only 20 minutes to reach Blind Owl. I had to drive 2 ½ hours. For me, online dating meant long-distance driving. Apparently, Dubois County women were cautious enough about me to swipe in a disfavoring direction.
During my online dating stint, otherwise known as my “wonder why years,” most first dates proved disastrous. I once drove three hours only to find myself in an argument over automatic weapons. That Dirty Harriet didn’t even blink when I mentioned Sandy Hook was too much to bear.
Once, I emptied a half tank of gas to reach a Chinese restaurant. I arrived on time. There was only one other customer inside, a much older woman. I sat alone at an empty booth for an uncomfortable amount of time, certain I had been jilted. Had I cracked open a fortune cookie, it would have said LOSER. But then my AWOL date texted: “I’ve been here for a while. You’re late. Are you OK?”
That’s when I realized she was the woman in the other booth I had walked by earlier. She looked nothing like her profile. Our awkward, half-hearted conversation over moo goo gai pan had all the joy of an arranged marriage. I regretted the wasted tire tread that resulted in no second-date traction.
But virtual Brynne and real-life Brynne looked the same. She was way out of my league looks-wise, but somehow, I kept the conversation going during our first Blind Owl rendezvous. Lucky for me, love was blind for Brynne at Blind Owl. She was well worth the gas money.
Seven years later, I still recognized the first table we occupied, but other first-date details were fuzzy. Now 59, my memory has become the playing field for a ruthless game of Pac-Man. The only positive takeaway from that last sentence is that at least I remember Pac-Man.
“What did we eat?” I asked.
“Pizza.”
Photo provided by Scott Saalman
The lid to our very first Blind Owl pizza box remains framed on our living room wall, commemorating our first date: March 5, 2017. Brynne artfully pressed actual bird feathers beneath the frame’s glass to accentuate the cartoony owl on the lid.
Our waiter, a personable guy with an alligator claw hanging from his left earlobe, bobbed in and out during our reminisces. He confessed to possessing a proclivity for taxidermy. We told him about our Blind Owl first date, hoping to net free Café Con Leche Bread Pudding. It was worth a shot. Though impressed, Gator Guy didn’t take the bait.
“What ran through your mind as our date approached?” I asked.
“I was excited. I was nervous. I was hoping my breath didn’t smell bad,” Brynne said.
“Yea – about that …”
“Shut up,” she said. Then she added, “You were smart and funny. Those are my two main things. I remember that you were engaged in talking to me while we ate. This is something you still do that I like about you. You will push your chair from the table and do one of these—”
She mimicked me sliding down the chairback a bit, crossing her left leg over her right knee, putting her left elbow on the table, propping her chin with her left palm, and looking straight at me. “‘He’s comfortable,’ I thought. You are comfortable in your own skin. We each had a beer. That helped. That helped my nerves.”
She reminded me about something else I said to her on our first date: “When I walked toward the restroom, you said, ‘Nice jeans.’ But you meant nice figure. Nice butt.”
She admitted to appreciating the bold comment. Her reaction could’ve gone either way. I was absolved of my lechery.
“You asked me to follow you to your car. You opened your trunk. I thought you were going to abduct me,” she said. “To my surprise, you pulled out chocolate chip bagels with chocolate chip cream cheese from Jasper and gave them to me. I loved that. Later, you called to see if I got home safely.”
The waiter brought our check. “Happy anniversary,” he said.
It has been a happy seven years. There is no seven-year itch to report, not even a seven-year twitch. Still Scrynne after all these years.
Scott’s new humor collection, Quietly Making Noise, is available on Amazon. Contact him to be a guest speaker at one of your gatherings. Contact: scottsaalman@gmail.com.