12:26 pm
Virgin Mary: (On the God mic) Welcome everybody, thank you all so much for coming today to the Star and Garter ballroom here in the Empyrean building. We’ll get started in a few moments and as you can see we don’t have an equal number of men and women, so if you find yourself waiting, please form an orderly cue here near the front and we will direct you where to go next. Please write your names clearly on your name tags and make sure they are visible. You will only have eight minutes for each date so please make your time count. No time to be shy folks, really put yourselves out there. So. Right. We’d like to ask the women to choose a table, whichever one you want, it doesn’t matter, and the men will rotate from table to table when you hear the bell. Please do not linger as there will be time during the mixer for follow-up conversations and you will not want to take time away from your next date. Are you ready? (off mic) Joseph, did you prep Helen?
Joseph: As well as I could boss, but she doesn’t seem cooperative.
Virgin Mary: Stuck up bitch. Nothing but problems since we took her on. Well, we need to find her a man she won’t want to run away from, even if she didn’t actually run in the first place. And that blind date with Adam Kadmon went nowhere.
Joseph: Not each other’s type.
Virgin Mary: No. He wants more of a viper. Ok here we go. (On the God mic). All right everybody, relax, have a good time, and remember with only eight minutes there is no reason to have anything but a fun conversation. Stay on neutral subjects, in other words don’t talk about sex, and remember that our policy is no sex before monogamy. Ok, Bell!
Bell: Heigho! Heigho!
Garrett Deasy: Hello pretty lady.
Helen: Hi. So, what should we?
Garret Deasy: I brought a writing sample in case you.
Helen: You want me to read this?
Garret Deasy: Maybe later.
Helen: There’s a bit torn off.
Garret Deasy: Metaphor for my life, I’ve been a bit short taken.
Helen: So have you ever been married?
Garret Deasy: Still am. The bloodiest old tartar God ever made. She once threw soup in a waiter’s face.
Helen: Great. What’s that on your face?
Garret Deasy: Foot and mouth disease.
Bell: Heigho! Heigho!
Helen: Thank God. Hi.
Vampire: Hello. You are a creature beautiful. Want to put your mouth to my mouth?
Helen: Not really. Sheesh, age preceeds creepy. Let’s not talk.
Vampire: Yes, yes. Your foot, allow me to put it in my mouth. You look like the sort who could bring sin into the world, ships to the seas. Um. I don’t want to be rude or anything, but aren’t you going to say anything?
Helen: Nope.
Bell: Heigho! Heigho!
Helen: This is already looking like a lost cause. Hello, I’m Helen.
Napoleon: Napoleon.
Helen: Well, when you sit down you pretty much disappear, don’t you. So what do you do?
Napoleon: I am an Emperor, undefeated. You?
Helen: Kyrios! Lord! That is impressive at least. I think the last guy was a cloacamaker, woof he stank!
Napoleon: Nature has endowed me with a virile and decisive character.
Helen: And your other, endowments? Judging from your stature I think it fair of me to wonder.
Napoleon: Hasn’t it been eight minutes yet?
Bell: Heigho! Heigho!
Helen: Oh lord what now. Hi I’m Helen. What’s wrong with your head?
Pyrrhus: (sniffing, wearing a bandage wrapped around his head with dried blood showing through the gauze) Got brained with a brick. Saw it coming too.
Helen: You ok?
Pyrrhus: Yes. No. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this. I’m just feeling so, I don’t know, so overwhelmed. I think it is some sort of existential crisis.
Helen: Oh honey, please don’t worry about it. You’ll be ok.
Pyrrhus: You are so sweet. I guess I was a bit misled in the past and now I feel like everything is a battle and I always fall.
Helen: Oh poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!
Pyrrhus: My analyst says I shouldn’t just dump this all out when I first meet somebody, I should highlight the radiance of my intellect, the language of my mind. But I don’t know. I think I’m a lost cause.
Helen: Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus, I am loyal to lost causes! I’ve never been loyal to the successful. Success for me is the death of the intellect and the imagination.
Pyrrhus: You mean it?
Helen: I do.
Pyrrhus: You are a rose! A rose of Castile!
Helen: Of where?
Bell: Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet, Iubilantium te virginum.
Virgin Mary: [On the God mic] Ok, nice speed dating people! We’ll take a short break, have a brief mixer, then do another round. That was great everybody! I feel so optimistic for all of you!
Joseph: You do?
Virgin Mary: Oh lord no. This was supposed to help Helen’s image and who does she like? Boohoo Pyrrhus. Well, time is money. Let’s get on with this travesty and have done with it. These are disappointed people, but we mustn’t make a mockery of their disappointment. And Joseph?
Joseph: Yes Holy Mother?
Virgin Mary: I am not your mother; I wish you wouldn’t call me that. Joseph, find Jesus. We’ll be needing lots more wine.
