Another installment in the great American novel...

The girls had settled in with their weekly order of buckeye bar and tea when the shaggy British accountant toddled over to their booth. “Hi girls! Sorry to interrupt! Was just going to come over when Tomas popped by. You’ll never guess what Luke and I have got going this weekend!”

Molly and Hazel eyed one another, not quite sure what to expect. With James, one never knew.

“We’re going Speed Dating!”

Stunned, the girls stared at James, then at each other, then at James again. Hazel found her voice first and managed to croak, “WHAT?”

“Yeah! Speed Dating!” James bopped his head enthusiastically and sat down next to Hazel. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

Crazy, indeed it was, but it was only the latest in James and Luke’s string of increasingly desperate attempts at finding girlfriends. Though not members of any church or professors of any particular religion, they were nonetheless semi-regular attendees at the singles group of a local mega-church, where they had been told the females outnumbered the males 3-1.

“How exactly does one ’speed date’?” queried Hazel.

“Well! You all sign up and everyone gets a card with some questions printed on it. You go about the room and ask these questions and jot down the answers. Then, when you go home, you read over the card and if there’s someone you’d like to contact, you ring the speed dating coordinator. He contacts the girl, and if she’s interested she tells him to give you her number. Then you can ring her and ask her out. Much less chance of rejection this way.”

“How so? Can’t she still say no?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s much less painful hearing it from the coordinator than from the girl.”

The girls deliberately avoided eye contact with one another. One glance, and the buckeye bar in Molly’s mouth would spew all over.

“Anyway,” continued James, optimistically, “Luke and I are going to put on suits and ties, you know, really put on the dog, and totally slay those girls. We figure that most of the guys there will be losers who don’t know how to dress, and our suits will give us an advantage. First impressions you know. Hazel, which tie do you think looks better? The blue pinstripe, or the red?”