Jager-filled dreams

Lucy blinked and looked again. The tag line actually said "do you like Metallica and shit?" Right, her eyes were playing tricks on her - or maybe it was the state of her computer screen after she'd spilled juice all over it 6 months ago.

Lucy sat back in her chair, thinking about the last Metallica guy she'd gone for. She'd justified the pursuit with the conclusion that all those years of singing "Master of Puppets" at the top of her lungs while making scrambled eggs on Saturday mornings had to count for something. The truth was, Lucy had always loved the dirtbags. She couldn't help herself. There was something spectacularly seductive about a greasy ponytail and tight jeans.

For their first date, they had met at a heavy metal bar. Jason wasn't quite as hard-core as she would have liked him to be (no Pantera armband on his jean jacket, no tattoos on his knuckles), but he did have an air of heavy metal about him, with his longish hair and guitar calloused fingers.

They spent the night drinking Jagermeister and talking about a wide variety of topics. Lucy almost punched him during their discussion about Russian literature (she not being a fan and Jason being a groupie of the gulag), but all in all it was a very successful date.

The only problem was that at the end of that night, Lucy, in a drunken horny haze, grabbed Jason and kissed him. She just couldn't handle the sexual tension any longer. It's not that he didn't respond, or that the kiss was bad (in fact it was very hot and Lucy had felt slightly quivery every time she thought about it), it was just that Jason didn't call her for several days after that date.

She had spent that time, as so many women do, wondering if her forwardness wasn't the reason why. She feared she was falling back into that familiar position as an emasculating/horny feminist and she'd asked herself why this always happened and why couldn't she keep her hands to herself for once?

As the silence between her and Jason grew, she knew she couldn't be the one to call him. She couldn't be the one doing ALL the work. She just had to wait patiently for him to make a move. It was imperative that his balls stay intact at this point...

Ghah! Lucky clicked on the email, trying to wipe the rest of that memory away. Jason had ended badly, with bad sex, some lame exchange of vague promises and an early morning exit.

The screen loaded up with pictures of the prospective candidate.

It was fucking Jason.

Jesus christ. Lucy closed her laptop and went to go fry an egg. Thank god she hadn't posted a picture. But then again, he was so stupid he might have sent the email anyway.

And what's that Lucy up to anyway?

Lucy stepped into her tiny kitchen and began putting away the 17 dollars worth of groceries from the Lucky Charm Mini-mart near her apartment. It was always a gamble grocery shopping at the Lucky Charm; you never knew when the store would have fresh vegetables or just rotting heaps of things no longer recognizable. Remarkably the prices, though always varying, never appeared to reflect the quality of the produce but rather the particular mood of the store's owner.

Today's spoil included milk, carrots, lettuce, almonds, some sort of chutney to add to her collection and "damn!" Lucy swore. "I forgot the filters." Another week of carefully reusing her last coffee filter stretched out in front of her.

She sat down at her kitchen table and clipped open her laptop - why had she said that out loud? There was no one here but her. This thought, coupled with the muffled laughter coming through the walls of her apartment, guided Lucy's mouse arrow to the online dating site she'd been trying to avoid. On line dating had been nothing short of a disaster for Lucy. Amongst the few non-55 year old 5"4 men from Mississauga who consistently sent her pictures of themselves and their compact cars, had been Giles who'd been gay, Chris who'd also been gay, Dan the 24 year old asshole, Phil who had been married, and her latest disaster: Mick who'd broken her heart and sent her into a downward spiral of depression and binge drinking within 36 hours of meeting him.

She could see that her account, untouched for the past two weeks, had one new message waiting for her. She blinked several times, reading the tag line of the person over and over, it said "Do you have my Metallica T-shirt?"