Blown Away

Story Sent in by Steven:

Lorianne and I were set to have dinner at an outdoor entertainment complex that had ping-pong. She and I both loved ping-pong, so dinner and the game seemed like a sure win for a first date.

She showed up looking pretty frazzled and I asked her what was wrong. She said, "My brother got lost earlier."

Her brother, Jim, was 14. I asked, "Oh, no. Did you find him?"

She said, "No. He blew away in those high winds we had, earlier."

"Was he... was he on the water, like on a boat?"

She said, "No. The wind picked him up and blew him away." She cried. "I miss my brother! Oh God!"

I didn't know what to say, so I repeated, "The wind carried him away? Like a tornado?"

She said through her tears, "No! It was just real windy and he hardly weighs a thing and we were outside and the next thing I knew he was carried up and off, over the houses across the street! We looked for him but couldn't find him!"

She flat-out cried her eyes out of her head. The thought crossed my mind that she was trying to escape the date, but then she said, "There's a search party in my neighborhood. I have to get back there, but you can follow me and help me find him, but I've got to go."

I said, "Okay..." (what else could be said?) and she hurried off.

As I said, I thought this was a ploy to cancel the date, so I followed her to her neighborhood, which wasn't too far, and I parked and followed her up to a suburban house that I guessed was hers.

However, she knocked on the door. A 50-something woman answered it with a very confused look. She said, "Lorianne? Did you lose the key?"

Lorianne, in hysterics, threw herself at the woman, tackling her against a wall and wailed, "Oh, God! Jim's dead, isn't he?"

The woman said, "We think he blew to Cliffdale."

Lorianne then spun around and slammed the door in my face.

The wind took me home after such a weird night, and that was the end of my almost-date.