Bronze. Silver. Heterochrome.

Story Sent in by Cynthia:

Curtis was a guy in college who always teased me because of my heterochromia iridis (the iris of one eye being a different color from the other one). I wrote him off as an idiot and left it at that. After my sophomore year, I hardly saw much more of him, anyway.

A little over five years later, I was out of a long-term relationship and I encountered Curtis by chance. He seemed to have mellowed out a lot and he suggested catching up over drinks. I believe his exact words were, "Let's do a date. I'll make all that nonsense up to you." We set the time and place there and then.

The evening of our date, while we were out together, he said, "I can see that you didn't get that problem fixed."

"Problem? What problem?"

"Heh. I can see. Get it? See? Ha!" He laughed himself silly.

I sighed. "Heterochromia isn't a 'problem,' Curtis. It's how I was born."

He said, "Ask a dead baby if being born dead isn't a problem!" He laughed so hard that he snorted out a glob of snot. He covered his nose with his arm and said, "Oh God!" then wiped his nose with his arm and then with a napkin. He looked at me with a glistening face and laughed a bit more.

I said, "You have snot all over the bottom of your face."

"Shut up," he said, "be right back." He left me at the bar, presumably, for the bathroom. I paid for my glass of wine and booked it out of there. He didn't have my number or really any of my contact info (we had arranged the date at our chance encounter) so luckily, I didn't hear from that loser again.