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"No, I don't think it's weird at all. It's cute. I mean, why be alone? Why choose that for yourself? It's not worth it." "Yeah, I think you're right. It's gets tiresome anyway. I mean, friends, they're great, but—" "Yeah." "Anyway, they set this up, and now here we are." "Here we are." "This is fun." "Yeah." ALL ABOUT LISA Lisa, Thomas's date, was thirty-four and pretty, and had been culled from a flock of probably less suitable women. Apparently she was the best girl for the job: interesting, normal, non-desperate, and fun, plus she talked like a lady and was sociable and an attentive listener too. I had my reservations. Lisa was lonely, perhaps too lonely. Female and single at thirty-four? I think not. My friends thought differently; she had been single just long enough to start to worry for her own future, and this, I was told, was a good thing. Lisa had a decent job, a little debt, a winning smile, and a string of relationships less failed than most. She had a good head on her shoulders, was generally well-liked, and was going on the dating short list whether I liked it or not, so there. So I warmed up to her. Attractive, reasonably feminine, and nonpsychotic, Lisa was a good choice, ok, the best choice for my friend. Because, well, for the first time in over eight years, Thomas was out with a member of the opposite sex, named Lisa, and she was actually pretty cool. Enough about Lisa. This story is not about her. Thomas is the champion of all things kick-ass, and could've done so much better than that matriarch Lisa, who was old enough to be my mother's mother's mother, at 34. And Thomas is the champion of all things kick-ass. He kicks so much ass that India called him and said, "Yo, Thomas, don't come over here, cuz we got like 1.1 billion asses in this place and no one has kicked them yet. We kinda like it that way, but thanks for playing—here's a free tote bag." Thomas rules. In other news, Thomas is no interpersonal communication wizard. He once showed up to a Planned Parenthood meeting in a t-shirt that read, "I SUPPORT A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE NOT TO ABORT HER UNBORN CHILD UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES." He therefore seldom makes a strong first impression, in spite of all the amazing things he's done and will do forever. He's obviously my hero. Heroics notwithstanding, Thomas's single days were over, agreed Thomas's friends—the friends who weren't me—before choosing a girl, Lisa, from a pool of fifty or more. Fine. She'll do fine. Oh! Let's eavesdrop on some juicy blind date conversation: "Your friends tell me that you're into computers." "..." "What do you do?" "Uhm, I work for a large computer company." "Really? Which one?" "IBM." "Wow, that's cool. What do you do for them?" "Programmer." "Oh, ok. What do you—" "I program. Code." "Oh." Dull as shit. In a related story, once upon a time a gaping pit of high-tensile boredom opened in the center of the earth and tried to suck Lisa inside, but she was far too boring, even by gaping pit standards, so it flung her onto a soccer field when no one was looking. Then an ambulance ran her over. The paramedics left her there to die she was so damn dull. Furthermore, Thomas is modest. He doesn't just work for IBM; he is IBM. He invented it in a crazy dream one time after a hard night of heavy drinking. (Drinking ain't easy.) There was this cute Samoan girl at the club and a warfaring tribal chief tried to break a pool cue over her head FOR NO REASON AT ALL. Of course, Thomas stepped in, gentleman that he was, and took care of everything. Meaning the chief ran for the hills and Thomas saved the pool cue from certain death. And that cute Samoan girl tried to kiss Thomas on the pants. Thomas said no, gentleman that he was, then played her nine-ball, and beat her, soundly. Later he threw up and stumbled home, and went to bed and invented IBM in his sleep. The next morning, everyone wakes up, and holy shit, look what's hit the NASDAQ overnight: friggin' IBM! It was a good time to be alive. I dropped a deuce in my pants I was so excited. "Lisa, what do you do?" "I'm an administrative assistant for a consulting firm in Raleigh." "Oh, really? Raleigh?" "Yes really, haha. Raleigh." "Raleigh?" "Yeah." "Really?" "Huh." "And how's that?" "It's good. Decent work. I don't mind the commute." "What's the name of the firm?" Few people know Thomas can fly. Only a handful of us noticed his feet lifting off the ground, three inches at least, on a Chinese New Year in the mid 1990s, David Blaine style. A jaw dropped. We stared, stupefied, as he boosted himself high into the air and performed a series of aerial somersaults and cartwheels. He twirled with abandon and swept wildly to and fro. He was drunk on glee. Only a handful of us noticed; the others were just not paying attention. Year of the Rat. A wide-body aircraft flew by; it was designed by a major aviation company for the purpose of transporting passengers through the sky from one location to another. Thomas paced the airliner for several hundreds of yards, singing to himself and curing a highly communicable life threatening disease mid-flight. Again, only a handful of us noticed. We're easily distracted. (Since when do women have the right to vote? That's bullshit.) "I've been single a long time. I hate to say you get used to it." "Yeah. But you do, after a while. You get used to it." "Yeah." "Hmm." "This is my first blind date." "It's mine too. Ha." "Yeah." "..." "..." "So..." "Lisa, I think you're pretty." "You do?" For two years Thomas was a student at BYU, the official university of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is an ecclesiastical body that boasts a living prophet and global membership in excess of 12.5 million. Founded in Provo, Utah in 1875 by its namesake Brigham Young, then Prophet and President of the Church (following Joseph Smith, Jr., who brought the Restoration of Christianity to earth after nearly two millennia of pan-Christian groping, during which the Priesthood "keys" had been hopelessly lost [they had been missing since the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles]; and he [Smith] is inarguably the most important man to ever live, save perhaps Christ, maybe), BYU is a lighthouse of righteousness in a world spattered with the iniquity of non-Christian learning, as well as a safe haven for worthy Latter-day Saints (whose tuition is subsidized in exchange for active participation in church activities, which is really for their own good, in the long run), as well as a bastion of religious and/or personal and/or academic freedom. Anyway, Thomas was a Mormon for some stupid reason. He was clean shaven (in observance of the strict BYU honor code and broader trends within LDS culture) but he hated it. Thomas wanted to grow a beard. Unfortunately, the Dress and Grooming Standards, as outlined by the Honor Code Office at BYU, explicitly forbids male facial hairiness of any kind. BYU students are expected be "neat and clean, consistent with the dignity adherent to representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and any of its institutions of higher learning." Sure. The Code continues: "Modesty and cleanliness are important values that reflect personal dignity and integrity, through which students, staff, and faculty represent the principles and standards of the Church" (i.e., NO BEARDS). But Thomas wanted a beard, so he did what only a man as heroic as Thomas would do: he faked a conversion to Islam and begged for religious asylum. "Muslims wear beards," he averred, "and as a soon-to-be-official Muslim I will too." Although he was eventually kicked out of school and disfellowshipped from the church, man, that guy rocks so hard. IBM became huge. Meanwhile, that cute Samoan girl was lonely for years on end. She needed love in a bad way. She got affliction instead. Life had thrown her a curve ball, and she stepped into the pitch and was knocked the fuck out. It's a sad story. Toward the end of her life she paid Thomas a visit at home. Thomas invited her in. They made small talk. They reminisced about that night in the club; they joked about the pool cue. She smiled, coyly. She started to take her top off. The roof collapsed. Damn termites. The cute Samoan girl was pinned to the floor under twelve square feet of heavy drywall and plaster. It was a dark day, I'm told, for cute Samoan girls the world over. What happened next? Thomas delivered the eulogy at her funeral, gentleman that we was, and the warfaring tribal chief returned for a nine-ball tournament that materialized next door without warning; he lost to Thomas in the semifinals, five games to one. 
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