Ina

When I lived in Edmonton, Ina was a special friend of mine. She had the beauty of Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life. I have seldom met such a sincere, honest person. I don’t know why, but we shared with each other our woes in dating. It was almost a competition. She would come up with one story and I would come up with another.

My best was when I want out on a date with Brenda. My Toyota truck was not the most reliable vehicle. It stalled in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in Edmonton at 6:30 pm on a Saturday night.

I did the manly thing and raised the hood. Yes, the truck had a motor. What could be wrong? I instructed Brenda to try to start the vehicle. It was a standard transmission. Brenda’s car was an automatic. She didn’t know that you should press in on the clutch when you try to start a truck with a standard transmission, otherwise – hey, watch it – the auto will lurch forward, and it did. I figured it was better to die under the truck than from the embarrassment I was experiencing.

A stranger helped me push it out of the intersection and to the side of the road. Brenda slid over. I got in the driver’s seat and turned the ignition. It started. The date gods were working against me.

As bad as this one was, Ina had one equally bad.

I decided that time had come. We had to find out who was the worst dater. I would take Ina out on a date.

The occasion was a banquet for my softball team. We had won the Alberta Intermediate Championship and we were meeting at a hall in the country somewhere.

On this night, Ina learned that she had met her match. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

To start, I arrived at her door sick. I should have been at home in bed, but I didn’t want to disappoint her on our special night.

We sort of got a bit lost trying to find the hall, but we arrived.

Being ill, I hardly had the stomach for the nice meal that was prepared.

Then came the live entertainment. It was a three-piece combo. They were bad. They were so bad that the guitar player didn’t even face the audience half the time. I decided that we should have our first dance together. Halfway through the song, I asked Ina, “That’s In the Mood they’re playing, isn’t it?” She told me it wasn’t, but when I asked her to really listen, she agreed that it was. Yes, the band was really bad.

On the way home, I developed chills. When we got to Ina’s home, she suggested that I should stay warm in the car. I didn’t even get to walk her to the door. With my sickness, I knew there wouldn’t be a goodnight kiss anyway.

The next time we met, Ina and I laughed at our first and only date. She conceded that I had won the competition hands down. It was rather a hollow victory. I honestly wish that I could have shown her a better time.

A few years later, we met, quite by accident, in Whitehorse. She was a nurse at the hospital and I was there for Softball Canada’s annual meeting. I looked up her number and called her home, but there was no answer. Then, while shopping I bumped into her on the street. We instantly threw our arms around each other and laughed. It proved to me that while our date was hell, our friendship was made in heaven.

I have no idea what happened to Ina after that, but I certainly hope she is well.