Scary woodsman

Japanese was my suggestion but he said not, his choice was a sports bar. Since he was paying, I guess he can choose. I met him there and he left his class, I am assuming at home because he didn't have any with him.

"How was your day at work?" He asked me. "Fine, it was slow so I was able to get some reading done." I replied then returned the question, "How was your day?" He began his long un-interesting story, "It was long, I was out late last night, had too much to drink with my friends, then woke up early this morning and went ice fishing." Ice-fishing, oh boy, this one even goes ice fishing. "Wasn't it cold?" I asked just trying to pretend I was almost interested. But I was surprised at his response. "No, we just build a fire. It is like camping." After a pause, I asked, "You built a fire on the ice?" To me that just sounds either next to impossible or remarkably stupid. "It works, you can build a fire on the ice, it will burn." he informed me. Completely out of my element, I asked what seemed to be a stupid question but what the hell, "Doesn't the fire melt the ice?" "Yeah, it melts some but it doesn't go all the way through." "Oh I see." I said still thinking that was a dumb idea to weaken ice that is covering a lake which by the way, your car is parked on. But, what do I know? Just a little common sense. If I had some super glue with me, I would have tried to leave some common sense with him because that would have been the only way it would have stayed with him.

"What else do you like to do when the lake isn't frozen?" I asked hoping for a much more interesting topic than ice-fishing. But, I wasn't so lucky, in fact, it got a whole lot worse. "In the spring and summer I go fishing a lot and in the fall, I go hunting every weekend. I'm gone hunting a lot."

*My inner coach kicked in, 'Okay Carrie, be nice and remember your facial expressions, don't move a muscle, just smile and pretend that you heard something interesting.'*

"Every weekend?" I asked in a disbelief, then I continued with another question that seemed to be legitimate. I don't know much about hunting but I do know you can only hunt during selected seasons. "Isn't there only specific times of the year or seasons that you can hunt?" He quickly said, "Yeah, but there is deer season with is long because of bow and rifle hunting, there is pheasant season, and duck season." Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck flashed into my head each one holding a sign, "Duck Season" and "Rabbit Season"

Wow, this guy really likes to kill things. Which quickly turned from a sarcastic comment in my mind to a terrifying mental statement. When he began talking about how many guns and knives he has and then asked me, "Do you want to come to my house and see them?" Every muscle in my body froze. A television in my brain quickly flipped though channels of horror movies and news flashes. Silence of the Lambs, Kiss the Girls, The Dungeon Master, women killed by meeting guys on line, and that creepy voice "Clarice". Uhhhgh! I was reading a map in my mind how quickly to get on the Highway home, where I was exactly, then I calmly reached to my pocket to make sure my cell phone was there. All of these thoughts happened in seconds but they were very vivid.

I looked at him and said, You know what, I have an early class tomorrow and I would like to make it an early night. But thanks anyway." I should have guessed that wouldn't be enough for him. He replied back, "We could just go for a little bit, it won't take long." I politely reminded him that this is our first time meeting and I would like to stay in public.

He said, "I understand, but it is a nice little house that I have been working on and I thought maybe I could get your artistic advice on painting it." To me it seemed an obvious way to try to get me to change my mind, I responded to him, "You know, if you look online, there a literally millions of ideas that people have done. Far more than I could ever come up with, I bet you could find lots of things there." Still pushing the issue he continued, "The land that the house is on is really beautiful, you would like it, there is a creek that goes down the back and woods on both sides of the house." If I wasn't already convinced that this could go horribly wrong, that pretty much did it. My body could end up lying on the side of the creek or somewhere in the woods. No thanks. I looked at him strongly and directly and said, "I am sure it is nice, thank you, but no."

He then ordered another beer, his third. "Are you going to be okay to drive?" I asked him. "Oh yeah, I had a lot more to drink than this and drove just fine." He boasted. This date is definitely a disaster! I made sure to not let it show, this guy was starting to scare me. Actually, let me rephrase that, he was scaring the hell out of me.

After finishing his third beer he asked, "Do you want to go to a different place and we could have a couple of drinks?" What could I say, he was so nice. "No thank you, I don't really drink much." Then he included, "Well, I could drive if you don't know your way around the area." He had three drinks in an hour, has a large collection of weapons, likes to kill things, and lives in the woods. My dream man. "No, actually, I better get going so I can get some rest, I have a long day tomorrow and a very early class. Thank you for dinner." I put on my jacket on and told him I needed to get going because I still had to drive home where I my homework was waiting for me. He walked me to my car and said good bye. When I pulled out of the drive way I checked to make sure he wasn't following me. Wow, what was going on with that guy?