Does anyone date anymore? You know, a more or less informal arrangement to get together with a person of the appropriate gender for some private time together in public. Charming custom.

Although my story is funny in a mean–spirited cartoon way, the last thing I want to be is flippant in the face of romantic anguish. I hope it might provide some perspective, maybe a benchmark of awfulness. Here’s the worst date I ever went on. Let’s hear yours.

I had a yen for a girl named Betty May. Tall, brunette, slim and silent. Cheekbones and eyebrows. She read books, made jokes.

We had standards then. We guys figured we were pretty hip, and it wouldn’t do to hang with run of the mill cheerleaders. We wanted strange adventures with unusual women. When interest in a young lady was announced, the first question was “Is she weird?” Betty May had it: she was weird.

We would chat at gatherings or share a beer and a jukebox song at the local. But when I suggested a private stroll for two, nothing ulterior you understand, just quiet time by ourselves, her answer was always no.

I’m a visual artist by profession. I had a picture in an exhibit —an oddball inside–out castle featuring forty–nine vanishing points. This was a great date to ask Betty May on. Attend an art show on the arm of one of the exhibiting artists? La dee da.

And she said yes! She would meet me there. Cool. The day came, a sunny Sunday afternoon. I parked at the show space and made myself visible on the curb. Time passed.

A faint roar grew louder. Down the road appeared a sun–faded, rusty, metallic olive–green, late ‘60s American boat car, about as wide as the entrance to a McDonald’s. Pitted chrome, leaving blue–white clouds, it slalomed toward me. Between sun flashes on the windshield, I could make out the driver. Scrawny, scraggly, he wore shades and long hair creemed back into a DA with a scanty Van Dyke up front. Hand on wheel, elbow out window, cigarette on lip. He resembled Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking.

Of course, you know who was hanging both shoulders out the other window, laughing and waving. Betty May resembled someone too; the girl on the cover of The Cars, the first LP by the eponymous ’70s Rock group. You could look it up. As they roared away, she yelled “Maybe next time, Dean!”

But you know, I never did ask her again.