Laundered Expectations

Story Sent in by Linda:

When Jeff and I met in person (after weeks of talking online) one of the very first things he did was lean in and sniff my shoulder. He said, "When was the last time you laundered your clothes?"

I was flabbergasted. "Laundered my... what are you talking about? This is clean." And it was, in fact, a freshly-laundered dress.

He replied, "Oh, you know what I mean," and gave me a wink, then a hug. "How the hell are you?"

I forgot the "laundered" comment soon enough, and the date went back to how I imagined a normal date would go. We took a nice walk, he made me laugh a lot, and then we went to our early dinner.

At dinner, he smelled the cloth napkin at the table and said, with a grin in my direction, "This smells... freshly laundered."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, you know... laundry. And laundering."

I must've given him a funny look, then said, "Yeah... laundry. Seriously, what are you talking about?"

He said, "Come on. You don't remember?"

"No." Was this a reference to something I simply forgot? It was entirely possible. We had spent a few weeks talking before meeting in person, and perhaps we had some sort of inside joke about laundry that I didn't remember. I said, "Can you refresh my memory?"

"Ha! Refresh your memory... like fresh laundry?"

"I'm sorry. I really don't remember the joke."

He laughed to himself, and then we moved on to other things. I didn't think much else of it.

It didn't come up again until the middle of dinner. All at once, he put down his utensils and sat back with a shocked look on his face.

"Oh my God," he said, "Holy shit. I... you're not..."

Whatever this was, it couldn't be good. He kind of shut up and stared at me with a weird twitch. I prompted, "What is it? Are you okay?"

He stood up and said, "I mistook you for Claire."

"Who's Claire?"

"Claire!" he repeated, as if I really was supposed to know her, "Claire! The laundry girl. Aw, damn it."

He kept staring at me, and he seemed to become angrier. I said, "I'm sorry I'm not Claire. I... I don't know what you want me to do."

He raised his voice and said, "I want you to be Claire, damn it!" then hit the table with his palm and stormed away, leaving me with his half-finished dinner and the entire check.

I had to pay the tab, but I did ask for his food to be boxed up, so at least I could have half a meal out of it. I've also since put a warning up on my profile about him, for all the good it'll do.