Romantically Challenged Read Online Free PDF Page A

Entertainment?”
    “No. I’ll just lay here and pray for an early death.”
    “When’s the last time you ate?”
    After a loud nose-blowing she said, “I don’t know. Last night maybe.”
    “I’ll be there by eight.”
    After work, I stopped at the grocery store for orange juice and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, then Jerry’s Deli for some chicken noodle soup, and finally Best Buy for a copy of Out of Africa , Kaitlyn’s favorite movie. It wasn’t the evening I’d envisioned, but Kaitlyn needed some TLC.
    Kaitlyn answered the door in her short-sleeve cloud pajamas, her red hair flattened on one side of her head and puffed out three inches on the other. She laid on the living room couch while I set our plates on the coffee table. Kaitlyn had a kitchen table, but in the ten years I’d known her I’d never seen her use it for anything other than storage.
    “Hallelujah,” she said and threw up her gangly arms when I’d told her my decision.
    “Calm down, I haven’t found him yet.” I was trying to soak up the soup she’d spilled before it reached her Persian rug. “I’ve just decided to look. The problem is, I don’t know where.”
    “Singles bar,” she suggested.
    “Only someone who hasn’t been on a date in four years would think you could find your soul mate in a singles bar.” Kaitlyn had gone directly from her college-sweetheart, to her law school sweetheart, to Billy, her first and only blind-date. They’d been together ever since, although the last nine months had been long-distance.
    “I know,” she said, practically throwing her spoon at me. “The guy from the plane.”
    “Are you out of your mind!”
    “I’m not saying he’s necessarily The One. But you should at least get to know him before you rule him out.”
    “First, he never even called me and—“
    “Yet,” she said. “Did you check your messages today?”
    “No, but—“
    “No buts, go check your machine. And get me the ice cream while you’re up.”
    I did as I was told and found a message from Plane Guy asking me to call him back. I hate it when Kaitlyn’s right.
    “Call him back and tell him you’ll go out with him Friday night.”
    “But he can’t be The One,” I whined.
    “Didn’t your mother ever tell you Prince Charming might not come in the package you expect?”
    “No, and even if she did, you know I never listen to my mother.”
    “Then listen to mine.” Kaitlyn’s mother was a psychologist and had been married three times, the last one when she was sixty. I had to give the woman credit. She had a career when most women didn’t and she knew how to find a good man.
    “I don’t even know what that means.”
    “It means keep an open mind.”
    “I have an open mind.”
    “No you don’t. Since Scumbag, you run every guy you meet through your mental checklist and if he fails in any category, no matter how minor, you immediately eliminate him.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “Then why haven’t you gone on a date in almost a year?”
    “Because I find great parking spaces instead of great men. It’s my karma. I have to find a way to reverse it. Maybe I should start valeting everywhere I go.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Finding your soul mate has nothing to do with parking and everything to do with your attitude.”
    “What’s wrong with my attitude?”
    “Why won’t you go out with the guy from the plane?”
    “Because he’s annoying.”
    “See.” (I didn’t.)  “You talked to him for a whole five minutes and you’ve already ruled him out.”
    “What are you saying? Prince Charming is disguising himself as an annoying skinny guy with a receding hairline?”
    “I’m saying give him half a chance before you blow him off.”
    I was about to say no, when I realized maybe Kaitlyn was right. Maybe plane guy was Prince Charming wrapped in annoying paper and I just had to open the package to find out. And if, as I suspected, he really was a frog, then I could prove Kaitlyn