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dollars a day to rent a car and I
got stuck with this lousy piece of junk and I finally got a date with the man of my dreams and
he asked me to meet him for lunch and I
crawled along the freeway with my knuckles
practically welded to the steering wheel, and
just when everything was looking okay Wheezy
died."
    Leonard shook his head sadly.
    "I'm so sorry for your loss."
    "My loss?"
    "The deceased. This Weezie person."
    "Oh, Wheezy's not a person. It's my car."
    "I see," he said, nodding much like I imagine
orderlies nod to out-of-control mental patients
before they strap them into straitjackets. I fully
expected him to back away and beat a hasty retreat, but instead, he took out an impeccably
clean hanky from his pocket and handed it to
me.
    "Blow your nose," he said gently. "Everything's
going to be fine. I'll get you to that lunch of
yours.
    What an angel. I made up my mind then and
there that if I ever had a child, I was going to
name it Leonard. Provided it was a boy, of
course.
    "But first," he said, "let's get this car of yours
out of traffic."
    He had me put the car in neutral and steer it
while he pushed it to the curb.
     
    "You can call a tow truck when you're ready
to go home," he said when we were through.
"Now let's head over to my van, and I'll give you
a lift."
    Was he the nicest guy in the world, or what?
Hope began to seep back into my heart. Maybe
this day wouldn't be a total washout after all.
    Then I saw his van and gulped. Leonard, it
turned out, was an exterminator. For a company
called Bug Blasters. And the van he drove had a
6-foot replica of a dead bug, straight out of
Kafka, lying belly up on top of it.
    Oh, well, I told myself. So it wasn't a limo. Big
deal. Beggars can't be choosers.
    "Hop inside," he said, sliding the door open.
    And then suddenly I got scared. Leonard
seemed like a wonderful guy, the very definition
of a Good Samaritan, but hey, so did Ted Bundy.
And I hear Jack the Ripper was a lot of laughs at
parties. What if Leonard was a secret sex fiend
planning to have his way with me under the
giant bug?
    I could practically hear my mother shouting:
Never get into cars with strangers!
    But then I thought of Andrew and the way his
hair curled at the nape of his neck, and threw
caution to the wind.
    I hopped on board.
    It turned out that Leonard was as nice as
could be, an absolute doll, who gave me all sorts
of handy tips about getting rid of ants. (Boric
acid along your baseboards works wonders, in
case you're interested.) We zipped over to The
Patio in no time.
    "Here we are," he said, pulling up in front of
the restaurant. "Only ten minutes late."
     
    "Oh, Leonard. How can I ever thank you?"
    "Let me give you my card, in case you ever
need an exterminator."
    I took his card and promised to call him at
the first signs of termites, cockroaches, earwigs,
and/or silverfish.
    Then I turned to open the van door and
gulped in dismay.
    I'd never been to The Patio before, and I now
saw that the restaurant took its name from a spacious outdoor patio facing the street. A patio
which was, at that moment, filled to capacity
with upscale, well-groomed diners-all of whom
were gawking at the van with the giant dead bug
on top.
    Dear Lord, I prayed. Please don't let Andrew be
sitting outside.
    But there he was, out on The Patio's patio,
gawking at the van like everybody else.
    Oh, crud. What would he think of me, showing up for our date in a Bug Blasters van? I considered telling Leonard to drive to the next
block and that I'd walk back, but he'd been so
nice to me I couldn't insult him by letting him
see that I was ashamed of his profession.
    There was no getting out of it. I gritted my
teeth and climbed down out of the van, treating
the al fresco diners to a swell view of my tush.
    It was a toss-up over which of us looked more
ridiculous: me or the dead bug.
    Gathering what was left of my dignity, I made
my way to Andrew's table, trying to