People often make rotten choices for love.

I've gotten into a lot of fishy relationships in my life and screwed most of them up. So when I met Jennifer, I told myself, 'Ralph don't mess this one up.'

Jennifer is like no other female I've ever met. She just glides effortlessly through the world. Her beauty sparkles in the sunlight like some kind of goddess. I never thought someone like her would give a dope like me a second glance. 

I'm a really ugly guy, a bottom feeder. I've had a few blind dates and either farted or burped and they never called me back. 

There was this one girl Linda who had a buggy eye, but I didn't mind. I thought we could be ugly together. But she was a really stickler for being on time and I was ten minutes late to a movie date once and she dumped me. I guess gals got a stricter sense of time than guys.

There was another girl Molly I dated back in school who had like a dozen sisters who all hung out at the school.  They were all a little dingy and all looked similar. I admit at a party one night I snogged one of the sisters in the dark by mistake. Molly made a big stink, cussed me out, and slapped me in front of everyone. I wasn't welcome in that school again. 

Too bad too because all her sisters were damn fine looking.

But most of the time ladies don't give me the time of day. So I was surprised when Jennifer laughed at my joke the day we met. She had asked me for directions to a local favorite eating establishment of mine so I offered to take her myself.

As we strolled along I racked my brain for something to say but all I could think of was a dad joke.

"What did the fish say when he hit the wall?"

She didn't answer, only shook her beautiful head.

"Dam."

That got a giggle out of her so I stuck with the fish jokes.

"How do fish always know how much they weigh?"

She again didn't say anything, just looked at a loss for an answer.

"Because they have their own scales."

She laughed so hard she hiccuped and a bubble floated out of her mouth. 

I was in love.

We ate a lunch of seaweed salad together. I hate salads but I wanted to impress her so I ordered the same thing she did. I could have been eating an old shoe rotting at the bottom of the lake and would have enjoyed it sitting next to her.

I went on a couple of dates with Jennifer. We went exploring together, out to dinner, then she wanted me to come meet her parents. Jennifer was going to spend the night with her parents and wanted me to meet them for lunch the next day at 1pm sharp. They lived all the way at the north side of the lake and I knew I needed to give myself extra time given traffic and all. 

But what do you know? I had one too many beers and overslept my alarm. Jennifer and her parents didn't have a phone. I had no way to reach them, so I panicked. 

"I'm telling you he's a predator, he'll eat you alive," said my friend Barney when I told him I had asked Little Timmy to fly me to Jennifer's parents' house.

It was an amazing experience, but Barney was right.

I had made a rotten choice for love once again.