Date Comes to a Halt Upon Viewing Woman's Bumperstickers

COLUMBIA- A local man took a woman he met on match.com on a date Friday night. "It's as if our profiles were copy and pasted, it was eerie," Dave Summers said of Julia Gardner. He was very excited to meet someone after getting a divorce last October. "It was time for me to move on, and Julia seems like a much better suited person for me than my ex-wife," Dave said. "She's a lot hotter too."

The two exchanged pleasantries at Julia's front door and then rode in Dave's 2005 red Toyota Camry to a local Dave and Buster's restaurant. Dave told his joke about how he was not in fact the "Dave" in "Dave and Buster's" and Julia laughed wholeheartedly. "I actually enjoy his jokes," Julia said. "Why do you look surprised?"

Upon leaving the restaurant, the two decided to throw inhibition into the wind and race each other to Dave's Camry. Once inside the vehicle, a breathless Dave expressed his happiness at having had a "really good time." Julia agreed and Dave drove in the direction of Julia's house.

Dave believed the date went well, and was looking forward to walking Julia to her front door. "I was hoping to get a smooch or a nice long hug," Dave said. But all his good feelings evaporated when his headlights illuminated the tail end of her '96 Nissan Altima.

"It was god-awful! Who has a "Blunt Trauma" bumper sticker anymore? It just ruined the whole evening for me," Dave nearly cried.

Among Julia's bumper stickers, there included several with sayings like, "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" and "Are you from Tennessee? Because you're the only Ten I See."

Julia's collection of feminist bumper stickers was the largest, totaling in 13 separate stickers. "I don't know how they even all fit on her bumper, but she managed!" Dave said.

Dave said he changed his tone to sound disinterested and ushered Julia out of his car in a hurry with an excuse of having to feed his pet fish. "I won't be calling her any time soon," Dave said.

Julia said she was confused and "a little hurt" by the way Dave "burned rubber" going down her street. "I thought we were having a marvelous time, and then something just changed. I might call him tomorrow and see how his fish are, but I can only do so much."

Checking in with Julia the next day, Julia said that he had not answered her calls, nine in total, and that she was disappointed. "Back to the website I suppose," a slightly resigned Julia said.