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sniper if she had chosen that line of work. Every time she gets off a nice one, it gives me hope that her soul might be reviving.
    As for the Bruiser, he has no mother. No father either. No one knows what the deal is there. All people know is that he lives with his uncle and an eight-year-old brother who looks like he’s being raised by wolves. And this is the family Brontë wants to date into. My sister obviously was never visited by the common sense fairy.
    “Exactly when were you planning to see this boy?” Dad asks.
    “He’s taking me miniature golfing on Saturday afternoon.”
    “Real high-class,” I say.
    “You shut up!”
    And I do, because now I know everything I need to know about her so-called date.
     
     
    2) CONSOLATION
    I take my girlfriend, Katrina, to play miniature golf Saturday afternoon. Is it coincidence, or is it design? You tell me.
    “Must we?” she asks when I suggest it.
    “We must,” I answer, and offer no further explanation. Her hatred of miniature golf, I think, is born of the fact that her father golfed away her entire childhood instead of spending it at home. I suppose Wackworld Miniature Golf Emporium is a reminder of those dark times.
    “It’s a happy place,” I tell her. “You can’t hate Wackworld; it’s like hating Disneyland.”
    “I hate Disneyland,” she says, although she won’t tell me why. Actually, I’m afraid to find out.
    “Okay, I’ll go,” she tells me, “as long as we don’t keep score.” And since my motives have nothing to do with golfing competition, I agree.
    “You’re paying, right?” Katrina asks. “Because I will not pay money to hit a ball with a stick.”
    I tell her that I’ll pay, but she really didn’t need to ask because I always pay. Katrina’s very old-school when it comes to dating. The guy always pays, and holds doors for her, and pulls out chairs. I actually kind of like it; it’s cool pretending to be a gentleman.
    Katrina and I had begun as what you might call a consolation couple. In other words, she really wanted to go out with my friend Andy Beaumont, and I really wanted to go out with her friend Stacy VerMoot. But Andy and Stacy found each other, and have since become surgically attached at the hip. That left Katrina and me as each other’s consolation prize. As I had just dislocated my shoulder and Katrina wants to be a nurse, it all just popped into place.
    “Life,” my father had once said, “is all about settling.” Unfortunately, he’d said that right in front of Mom, who proceeded to serve him a peanut butter and onion sandwich for dinner that night.
    “Life is all about settling,” she reminded him as she slipped the plate in front of him. His response had been to eat the whole horrific sandwich out of spite, then catch her unawares with a big, slobbery, peanut butter and onion kiss. After that they didn’t speak to each other for about a day and a half. I swear, parents can be such children.
    I meet Katrina at her house, and we walk to Wackworld, since buses in our corner of suburbia don’t go anywhere but to some place called the Transportation Center, where you can catch a dozen other buses that don’t go anywhere. Since I’m still not old enough for a license, my only choices are bike, parental taxi, or my own two feet. Katrina always prefers walking, because it provides us with an opportunity to talk. Actually, it provides her with an opportunity to talk and me with the opportunity to listen. The only time those roles reverse is after a lacrosse game, when you can’t shut me up.
    “. . . so for the entirety of math class,” Katrina continues, “Miss Markel has one of her false eyelashes dangling half on, half off her left eye, like a caterpillar; and the whole class is watching and waiting for the thing to drop. . . .”
    I don’t mind her stories anymore. When we first started going out, I would zone out when she got into it; but as time went on, I got used to it and actually found that