What a disastrous start to things

Liz requires an intervention to find out exactly why Joseph isn’t at their dinner date.

“Good evening ma’am,” a waiter startles me out of my reverie. I am sitting at this dinner table waiting for Joseph to finally arrive for our dinner date. It’s 20 minutes past our meeting time and there is neither a sign of him nor a message from him.I am rather upset.

“Shall I bring you a menu and a drink?” the waiter asks. I nod as I wrack my brain for what I want to drink. Since I know I will not be paying my own bill, I decide that I will saddle Joseph with the tab for a really expensive drink, and so I ask the waiter to bring me a tall glass of one of their more expensive wines.

“One glass of wine and one menu coming right up,” he says.

“Um, two menus, actually,” I indicate with my fingers. “I’m expecting company.” I almost detect him raising a skeptical eyebrow, but then I shrug it off as just my imagination.

A minute or two later, as the glass of wine lands and it is now approaching half past the hour, I decide to pick up the phone and find out where, exactly, Joseph is.

“Hello?” he responds when he picks up. He sounds groggy.

“Where are you?” I hiss.

“Who is this?” he asks. I roll my eyes in disbelief.

“Your dinner date!” I sputter.

There is silence on the other end for a few long seconds.

“Liz!” I add. Now I am really, really upset.

“Liz… Li-Oh!”

“Yes. Oh. Me.” I am not impressed in the least. “You sound like you are in bed.”

“Oh… I am so sorry. I just… took a nap and then….”

“You’re really asleep?!” I cannot believe what I am hearing.

“I mean… I’ve had such a long day. I came home at 4pm to take a short nap for an hour and then wake up refreshed and ready for you. I even set my alarm. I guess I was so tired I slept through it.”

“You’re asleep?!” I am speaking through gritted teeth now.

“Oh dear. I’ve messed up, haven’t I?”

“You think?!” I retort sarcastically.

“Look, let me make it up to you.”

“How?!”

“I’m on my way there. Dinner’s all on me.”

“Child, were you planning on making me pay for it in the first place?!” This conversation is starting to go to some ugly places.

“I meant… No, of course not… I mean… Look, I’ll be there in a few minutes. We can sort this out then.”

“Why do you think I will be here waiting for you when you arrive?”

“Look, I’m sorry Liz,” he says. “I was really looking forward to this but I didn’t think I would fall asleep so hard. Please give me 10 minutes. I live literally next door.”

I look at my watch, and then I weigh the contents of my glass and how long I think it’ll take me to savour it. “I’ll give you exactly 10 minutes and if you are not here I will leave.”

“Deal,” he says, and clicks off.

I put my phone down on the table, shaking my head. The nerve. Who organises a date and then falls asleep when they should be at the date?! I take a large sip of my drink and pick up my phone to swipe through some social media pages and keep myself entertained. It is then that I remember Mariam telling us all about this dating cell phone app. I might as well give it a shot and see what happens. I take another large sip and go through to my phone’s app store, where I download the app and open it to see how to go about opening an account.

Joseph arrives about 20 minutes after our last phone call, but I am so engrossed in this app that I hardly notice that it is the second time he has showed up late today. And it’s just our first date.