Commitment Issues

"Thanks" she said as I opened her car door. Was that surprise in her voice? Did people not open car doors anymore? Well, if that struck her as unusual this next part was going to leave her at a loss for words. I opened my car door for myself (see nothing unusual about me opening car doors), and I buckled my seat belt before handing her the pink ribbon pin.

"What's this for?" she asked, giving the surprised tone an encore performance.

"That's the pink ribbon, it's dedicated to raising breast cancer awareness and funding for breast cancer research."

"I know that, she said, but why are you giving me one?" She had given the surprised tone a break and was trying out an offended one.

"Our date tonight is one of their many sponsors."

"How can a date be a sponsor?" she asked, offense giving way to incredulity.

"All profits from this date will be donated to breast cancer research".

"We're going to dinner and a movie, how could we possibly make this profitable?" Having tried three separate tones already she mixed them all together for this question.

"Lots of ways, we could find stacks of cash under our chairs, get roped into a high stakes scavenger hunt, win an impromptu dance competition. The list goes on and on."

"Those don't seem very likely" she forecasted with little to no statistical background.

"Maybe not, but unlike other couples out this evening if we come into some money it goes to a good cause"

"What if dinner and a movie cost $50 dollars and you find $50 in the parking lot."

"Then the evenings a wash."

"And if you find nothing?"

"Then it's a $50 tax deduction"

"I don't think that's how that works." she advised, with no accounting or financial planning background. "We're not going to dinner or a movie tonight." Not even 15 minutes into our relationship and the unilateral decisions were already in play. "If we're going to be sponsors we're going to make some money".

"What did you have in mind?" I questioned in my customary monotone.

"I have an ex out of town with a fortune in baseball cards. We'll break in there, sell the cards downtown, and donate the money." She said this as if explaining the errands schedule, 'We'll go to the bank, then pick up milk, then drop by the redbox'. To emphasize the casual and final nature of this plan she rested her hand on top of mine.

As a connoisseur of absurdist humor I laughed, but my right arm which had been resting peacefully on the armrest and now played host to her left was confused as it was not usually a party to physical comedy.

As I prepared to turn left my right arm was abandoned as she grabbed the steering wheel and changed our course. "Right here" she said, "he lives on 7th street."

Either she was really committing to this joke, or I was going to have a pretty eventful post for tonight.