This is a post about a bad date worthy of a movie, the kind I was accustomed to having way back when…

Last week, my friend Alan went on a first date with Jill, a girl he met online. Unlike traditional means, they decided to watch a movie at her apartment. While he was on his way to her, she called him.

“Do you think you can fix my toilet?” she asked, randomly. “It’s not really working the right way.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Alan answered, having zero clue how to fix a toilet, short of calling his plumber.

Alan arrived at Jill’s apartment thirty minutes later, and was escorted into the bathroom a short while after that.

“Okay, I’ll take a look,” he said.

After closing the door and urinating in the toilet, he looked into the already uncovered tank.

Hmmm, maybe, I have to pull this to flush it? he thought, and yanked a small piece of plastic up.

It was the wrong answer, because the plastic piece was now sitting comfortably in his palm. Panicked, he threw it in the sink, washed his hands, and went into the living room to sit with Jill.

About a half hour later, Jill heard a strange sound coming from the bathroom, like running water. When she got there, she was horrified to see that the toilet had been overflowing ever since Alan had pulled his little stunt.

“What’s that in the sink?!” she yelled.

“Oh, I pulled that out,” Alan said, shamefully.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?!”

As Jill turned away from his blank expression to get some towels, Alan sprung into action…that he shouldn’t have sprung into. As if he came straight out the movie Along Came Polly, he began taking her expensive towels and soaking them with the oncoming rushing water.

When she realized this, Jill screamed even louder.

A few minutes later, the water had stopped flowing and Jill and Alan were standing in a flooded bathroom, surrounded by soaking expensive towels.

They sat on the couch in awkward silence while she waited for her super to arrive, until Alan couldn’t take it anymore and left her sitting angrily with her arms folded on her chest.

Aside from the story being absolutely hysterical and movie-worthy (it would have done Ben Stiller proud), I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Alan, why would you tell her you knew how to fix a toilet and, more importantly, why wouldn’t you say you pulled that piece off by accident??” I asked.

“I don’t know, I was embarrassed,” he said.

“And you were less embarrassed once her bathroom was completely flooded out?!”

For the first time ever, I went on a romantic couple’s vacation. My boyfriend, Mark, took me to Jamaica last week. Because he is the outdoorsy type, we did some pretty crazy stuff, including ziplining, river-tubing, and climbing a waterfall. I, myself, prefer calmer activities — massages, poolside sunbathing, and peaceful kayaking off the shoreline. Well, the massage was painful as Hell, I got an insane sunburn, and the damn kayaking almost killed me! Ironic, I know.

I was mocked by the Water Sports Activities’ director the second I strapped the life vest on (with his help) and sat down in the boat.

“Have you ever kayaked before?” he asked me, smiling.

“Once, when I was younger. Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re sitting the opposite direction that you’ll be paddling. Don’t worry, he’ll still be here if you turn away from him for a few minutes,” he said, laughing.

Embarrassed, I turned myself around and proceeded to sit as Mark paddled us away from the shore.

When we got far enough away from him, I yelled “Picture time!”, adjusted my favorite pair of sunglasses, and handed him the Go Pro.

After we each took a picture of the other, I said that I wanted to get one together. However, as Mark tried to head over toward me, I knew the rocking of the kayak was way too forceful for him to move any further.

“Forget it, I don’t need the picture!” I yelled frightened, as we swayed from side to side.

But Mark is a guy, and God forbid he should listen. Within seconds, the kayak flipped and I was thrown into the ocean. With water up my nose, and my heart racing, I was just about to “I told you so” him.

That’s when it happened.

The kayak completed its flip and the water pressure sent it plummeting down directly onto my face.

For the first moment or two I felt myself passing out, but I knew I had to stay conscious to keep from drowning. I settled for crying hysterically.

Not seeing what had happened, Mark quickly went from laughing hysterically to concerned about my head injury upon seeing my tears. He flipped the kayak back over, and put me into it, before climbing back in himself.

“I have a bump!” I yelled, feeling the huge lump on my forehead.

“It’s not so bad, babe. It’s really tiny,” Mark said, trying to calm me.

I was about to argue the point, when something more important caught my eye. When I looked back at the shore, the hotel was a tiny dot in the distance. How did we get so far out?

First I panicked, then I went into survival mode. I shouted “Left” and “Right” like a drill sergeant, and we eventually paddled our way back to the director, who was no longer laughing when he saw the HUGE bump on my head, and the tears streaming down my face.

When I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I realize Mark had lied and it looked like I had a second head growing out of my forehead. That was also the time I realized I lost my favorite pair of sunglasses in the ocean (they must have gotten knocked off my head when I was almost knocked out). That brought on a whole other set of hysterical tears.

Mark apologized for trying to take the picture even though the kayak was rocking, and made me an ice pack, which I kept pressed to my head while crying, walking through the resort and lying on the beach. I assume everyone there thought I was a battered wife, because not a single person inquired about my head injury.

It’s just my luck to get a bump the size of Texas on my romantic vacation!

Have you ever been injured on a romantic vacation?

The following is a Guest Post from my friends over at Tastebuds.fm (a site where you can meet people with similar music tastes)…

Better look out – your music taste can give away more about you than you may think. We’re not yet at the stage of evolution where admitting you like Rihanna, Nirvana or The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble will tell others what you keep in your fridge exactly – but your favorite genres can give away a lot. Here’s what you have to be aware of… Continue reading →

I hate when I laugh out loud in a movie when everyone else is silent.

About a week ago, my boyfriend, Mark, and I went to see the movie “This is 40″. Paul Rudd, the star, plays the owner of a music studio. He talks about how much he loves Simon & Garfunkel. When he and his wife get into a fight, he calls the awkward silence “The Sounds of Silence”, Simon & Garfunkel’s most famous song.

Naturally, I laughed hysterically. There was only one problem — I was the only one Continue reading →