Fancy BBQ

I wasn’t sure what the cutie from NCR liked to eat. With a few good restaurants in mind, I called Linda to firm up our date. She surprised me by selecting a fancy BBQ joint on Peachtree Road in Midtown Atlanta. I told her a couple of friends told me it was good. That was a lie. The two-friend recommendation came from my roommate and me from a lunch we'd enjoyed there a few weeks earlier. Determined to remove the stench of my fashion degradation at our first meeting, I wore my best pants and shirt. My 1984 VW GTI was sparkling clean. I'd recently invested ten percent of the car’s value in a fancy audio system. I arrived at her rental house on time. She climbed into my VW and flashed her huge blue eyes. I had mood music playing, but she asked me to turn it off. Linda commented on the car’s shiny exterior and spotless interior, then asked how I paid for it. I enjoyed the question. It allowed me to show off—my financial prowess. I’d paid $9,000 with a $2,000 down payment, financing the…