Toothache Date

Another odd date story.

Lesley and I worked in the sub-basement of Dayton’s, a large department store in downtown Minneapolis. It had five branch stores and all non-furniture items for all of the stores were received there. I would work in an area where I sorted packages and loaded pallets to be shipped out. Lesley worked in the office where price tickets were generated for all the merchandise. This was pre-UPC bar codes, price marking was done in basically the same way it had always been done and the store had opened seventy years earlier. Lesley was young and bored and when I mentioned in the break room that I was going to see a band tonight she lit up. The date was set.

When I picked her up at her house, she seemed to be bothered: “I’ve got this terrible toothache,” she said. “I’ve got some cloves, maybe that will help.”

We went out to the show, but the band was playing on the University Campus and we weren’t students so we couldn’t get in. Her mouth was really starting to hurt now, so I took her home. On the way I learned that she already had a boyfriend, but she couldn’t go out with him because he was in jail.

Ulp.

I dropped her off and wished her well.

I few weeks later I happened to run into her at a convienence store. She was glad to see me, her tooth had been fixed, and her boyfriend was back, and was waiting outside the store in his car. “Let me introduce you,” see said and took me outside. Her boyfriend gave me a dirty look as he opened the door for Leslie.

Perhaps that toothache saved me from a whole lot of trouble.