The Air of His Ways

Story Sent in by Macie:

Out to dinner on my date with Joe, he asked me, "What kind of deodorant do you use?"

I replied, "Tom's of Maine. You?"

He said, "Pigface."

"Your deodorant's called 'Pigface'?"

"Well, that's the fancy name for it."

"As long as it works, right?"

He nodded and that was the end of our deodorant talk. Not long afterward, he asked me, "Hey, would you mind smelling my breath?"

Before I could respond, he leaned across the small table and breathed on me. I held my breath as best as I could, but the residual stench still hung in the air. He smiled at me. I said, "Why on earth would you do that?

He said, "But how was it? Good, right? Even though I ate all these onions."

I raised my voice. "Did you also eat stupid pills? What the hell are you thinking, breathing on me like that?"

He put his hands up like he was approaching a wild horse. "Whoa, now. Don't go all crazy bitch on me. It's oxygen. I didn't rape you. We need oxygen to live."

I stood up. "We're done here," I said.

"Wait! Wait!" he said, behind me, "We need oxygen! Breathing on you shouldn't be a criminal offense!"

He wrote me three emails that night, all linking to scientific papers about oxygen and the respiratory system. Each email ended with, "Let me know if you have any questions."

I ignored each one, but every Monday, for a month straight, he messaged me with, "Do you have any questions? Do you see how important oxygen is?"

I wrote him back once and asked him to stop emailing me, and he wrote back immediately, begging for another date. I ignored all future messages from him.