Free Hello Kitty Must Die by Angela S. Choi

held up three, perfectly manicured fingers.
    I glanced at Amanda’s name tag which listed the three things she wanted men in the room to know about her:
    SHOPPING
    COOKING
    GIVING MASSAGES ;)
    I fought my gag reflex.
    “Oh, what should I write? What are you going to write?” Laurie asked, scanning the room nervously.
    “Dunno yet.”
    I looked down on my name tag. It said “Hi, I’m” with a large blank space for my name and my three things. I grabbed a Sharpie and wrote on my “Hi, I’m” tag:
    NOT A GREEN CARD TICKET
    NOT A MEAL TICKET
    LOOKING FOR A BIG PENIS
    Laurie gasped. “Fi, you’re not really going to wear that, are you?”
    I peeled the waxy paper away from the label and slapped the tag on my lapel, wondering what Sean would have said had he seen what I had written. “What would you need a big penis for? Total waste on you.” He would probably have said something like that. And he would have been right. Sean always was.
    “Or do you think it would look better on my forehead, Laurie?”
    Laurie choked on her cosmo, coughing and snorting some out of her nose. She started laughing.
    Amanda, our hostess, came over, read my tag, and gave me a nasty look. “You can’t wear that. Make another tag.”
    “But I like this one.”
    “No man is going to want you.”
    Right.
    “Okay, everyone. No talking. As you all know, this is silent speed-dating. Instead of speaking, you’ll be writing messages to each other on these index cards.” Our host held up salmon-colored 3x5 index cards, waving them over her head. “Okay, ready? No talking from now on until I say so.”
    “Laurie, what is this?”
    “Silent speed-dating, Fi. Shhhh!”
    Save me, Jesus.
    But Jesus wasn’t listening.
    I wrote “Hi (Duh)” on my first index card and flashed it about. Three guys walked over to me and Laurie. They looked at my name tag, laughed, and started scribbling on their pink cards.
    Hi, I’m Joe. You’re funny.
    Hi, I’m Thomas. You’re funny.
    Hi, I’m Greg. You’re funny.
    Duh.
    Laurie scribbled furiously.
    Hi, I’m Laurie. I’m a lawyer. I work with Fi here.
    Hi.
    Hi.
    Hi.
    Hai.
    And on it went. For two hours.
    I started to wonder if any coupled happiness would result from our savage use of trees, dye, and ink. Then Joe and Thomas returned to where I was sitting at the bar. They both slipped me an index card. Each had a phone numbers scrawled on it.
    Laurie smiled and waved at them. They waved back and walked away.
    Her tag read, “Hi, I’m”
    LAURIE WONG
    SHOPPING – MOVIES – RUNNING
    No phone numbers for Laurie.
    Poor girl.
    Laurie and I walked back to the office after the speed-dating event. We still had a busy night ahead of us. After all, ninety-hour weeks don’t bill themselves.
    “Fi, you did well! Wow. Two numbers. Are you going to call them?”
    “No.”
    “Why not? It can’t hurt to get to know more people. I just signed myself up on match.com and eHarmony this week. I’m waiting for my matches. You want to sign up too?”
    No. I don’t want to die.
    Internet dating can be hazardous to your health.
    Just ask Raymond Merrill. But you can’t. He’s dead.
    All the fifty-six-year-old carpenter from San Bruno, California wanted was a woman to love. All he did was answer an ad on a Brazilian marriage website promising to make his dreams come true.
    I wonder if his dreams ever included being kidnapped, robbed, drugged, strangled, doused with gasoline and set on fire in a vacant lot in Brazil by the woman he thought was the love of his life.
    Because that was what Raymond got. Poor man. Talk about being a victim of false advertising.
    So I told Laurie.
    “No, that only happens in rare cases. You met Joe and Thomas in person first.”
    So obviously they could not turn out to be psychos later.
    “Besides, just have them take you to a movie or something. Keep it near your house so if anything weird happens, you can just leave, Fi.”
    True. Laurie had a point. But I wasn’t interested in Joe.