I'll Save Me

Story Sent in by Lorna:

I was at dinner with David at an Indian restaurant. While there, he told me about his troublesome living room ceiling fan. "No matter how many times I tighten it, it loosens. I'm afraid it'll just fall down, someday."

He mentioned it a few times and I wasn't sure why. It's not like I'm a ceiling fan expert or something. Otherwise that date went well, as did the next. I had quite forgotten about his ceiling fan difficulties when he invited me to his place for barbecue and a movie.

It was a warm day and he had his living room ceiling fan on. As he had said, it seemed very loose, as if it would pop off the ceiling at any moment.

"Maybe you should turn it off," I suggested.

"It'll be fine," he assured me, "It'll hold."

It was right above his couch and as we sat down to watch a movie, I suggested that we sit elsewhere or turn the fan off. It really looked about a second away from dropping.

"It's fine. I promise," he said again and again.

Less than 20 minutes into the film, the fan made a clicking noise and I bolted from beneath it. A moment later, it crashed onto the couch, about where I had been sitting. David had apparently leaned away in time.

"God damn it!" David said, "You couldn't have waited a second?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "You wanted it to hit me?"

He said, "I would've pushed you out of the way. I would've saved you," he said. "Now it was all for nothing. You can go."

I asked, "You wanted it to fall on me so you could... save me?"

He said, "Yeah. I had the timing right but I didn't think you'd jump away so fast. Way to save yourself and forget about me, by the way."

I didn't like what I was hearing so I told him I was going to go. He didn't seem too upset about it, and that was the close of our three-date cycle.