The Blind Date

“Just one question,” pleaded my best friend Sue as we went over last minute details.

“Is it bad?”

“Very,” came my swift reply.

I gently placed the receiver down not allowing a single second for her response. I imagined Sue, phone still in hand, slowly digesting my words. Her mood once brimming with hope and anticipation, now fading to dread.

Sue was doing me a favor, a great favor indeed in agreeing to meet my husband’s childhood friend and former business associate, a one Joseph Hannon who was visiting the big Apple from his hometown of Wisconsin to attend a business conference in NYC. I had never met Joe and my husband as men often do, had little to say when I asked him what Joe was like. Though I could have sworn I heard him utter “a little eccentric” under his breath.

His very first time in New York City, Joe had hoped to spend time with my husband whom he had not seen in over ten years. But being that we had a wedding to attend the one night Joe was in town, I suggested my friend Sue might meet him for a drink, our stand in of sorts and tour guide to the city.

Bright, blonde, attractive, and single, Sue was generally up for anything though she had never before been on a blind date which I must admit, took some persuading to get her to agree.

And now the night was upon us.

When the buzzer rang I volunteered to meet him at the elevator. And as the doors slowly parted like velvet curtains before the opening act of a much anticipated play, Joe Hannon jauntily stepped out. The first thing I noticed as he held out his hand to greet me, was the enormity of his eyeglasses which framed a pleasantly handsome, round and youthful face. His skin was of pale pallor, and like a baby’s, completely unlined. His stature is what my father sometimes referred to as “pear shaped.” He sported a tall pair of scuffed cowboy boots which stood in stark contrast to his tidy gray business suit.

Walking down the hallway toward the apartment, I mentioned that the hall lights, for some reason, were unusually bright. Joe stopped, gazed up at the ceiling, then methodically back at me. “Well,” he said slowly his voice brimming with authority, “Being that you are quite fair skinned, you are likely highly ocularly sensitive to harsh light. There is a direct correlation you know.”

I swallowed hard and tried not to think of Sue, likely at this very moment en route to the Cadillac Bar.

As they sat at a small table overlooking Second Avenue, Joe confided that he disliked air travel so had opted instead for a taxi cab ride from Madison, Wisconsin to New York City. A hefty tab and bit of a time commitment but absolutely worth every penny for the peace of mind, he added. He told of his life in the Midwest where he worked as a Securities Analyst at a large bank. He enjoyed a close relationship with his family and spoke proudly of his Croatian mother, who painstakingly made soap in the basement of her home. Joe stressed to Sue of the importance in the precise proportion of lye to oil which if miscalculated, could be disastrous.

At one point in their conversation Joe leaned in close and asked “Sue, can you please speak just a little bit louder? I have terrible ear wax build up and can only hear ever other word.”

Glancing out the window desperate for a diversion, Sue’s soul left her body as she spotted four of her co-workers from Kidder Peabody, steadily making their way toward the entrance. She would never live this down. Thinking quickly she convinced Joe to try a new bar across the the street which she thought he might enjoy and in no time had successfully whisked him out a side door just seconds before her co-workers entered.

I sometimes reminisce of Sue’s blind date with Joe Hannon. To her credit and loyalty, she told me that after she had asked me if it was “bad”, and I responded “very,” she laughed and laughed but still decided to show up.

I loved her for that.

I sometimes ask my husband what became of his friend from Wisconsin but he has long lost touch, though he had last heard from a mutual friend that Joe was working with his mother as CFO in her now thriving, all natural home-made soap business.

When I am out socially and the question “have you ever been on a blind date?” ever arises, the story of Joe Hannon is first and foremost in my repertoire.

And it is never fail, a winner.

*Although my story took place in NYC, names and certain locations have been changed.