ROUND ONE
Guy: Hey, I’m Carl.
Lucy: I’m feeling a little low right now.
Guy: I can get you a phone book or a baby booster —
Lucy: You’ve got it wrong. I am emotionally low. Like down and out.
Guy: This is the speed-dating thing, right?
Lucy: My name is Lucy and I have a cactus, a job, and basic plus cable. Not necessarily in that order.
Guy: Is the cactus single?
ROUND TWO
Guy: Cheers, I’m Basil.
Lucy: So you’re German.
Guy: Pfft. Er, I’m from London.
Lucy: Nothing.
Guy: England.
Lucy: Hey, whacka, whacka let’s put the ‘gland’ back in England.
Guy: Come again?
Lucy: I’m always above people’s heads.
Guy: Yes, well then. Aufweidersehen.
ROUND 3
Guy: Oh, wow, this is fun! You having a good time?
Lucy: Compared to the funeral yesterday, yes!
Guy: Jesus, I’m sorry. Did I say something? Who. Died?
Lucy: Coral Wilson, she was 87.
Guy: Grandma?
Lucy: Lover.
Guy: You have a sick sense of humor lady.
Lucy: Whatever do you mean?
Guy: Well, that can’t really be true.
Lucy: So much is true that no one wants to be true.
ROUND FOUR
Guy: Word on the street is that this is the black hole seat. I got a text from my man Jimbo that said you’re some kind of necro—lesbo.
Lucy: I love your shirt. What do you call that? Criss-crossy lines? Intersections of color? Boxes of interconnectedness? Catholic shame branding?
Guy: Plaid.
Lucy: There is a sadness to that.
Guy: What? No there isn’t. Plaid is cool, it’s everywhere and it’s perfectly happy.
Lucy: No, that I love your shirt so much. I’m really into it. If you’ll let me be forward with you, its stolen my heart.
Guy: So I suppose you want to have a round with just my shirt then?
Lucy: You really get me. If you’d worn a different shirt tonight then it’d be you, I swear, it’d be you I could spend the rest of my life with.
Guy: What if I told you the shirt is me and me is inhabited by a temporary setback?
Lucy: So the shirt is an externalized version of yourself that you really like a lot and you want to keep it safe.
Guy: Here, take it.
Lucy: I’m going to buy it a whiskey. It needs one.
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