(WARNING-ADULT HUMOR: Turn back now if offended by women dunking donuts, Holiday Inn or the implication of the F-word)

I have been divorced and a single parent for most of my adult  life.

I have kept my maiden name and my husband and I  do not have matching wedding rings.

Bullshit.

That’s right. I said it.

If the truth be told, dating – more than unplanned pregnancy – is the real reason people choose marriage.

Coincidentally, I sucked at dating. Figuratively speaking.

I tried to date only on the weekends I did not have my children, but I was not very good at it. It seemed like a lot of work and after working two – sometimes three – jobs, I was tired.

Too exhausted to be playing The Dating Game.

That, plus my personality attributed to my long-time single parent status over the years.

One night, my voluptuous friend and sex siren, Denise, and I went to a bar/restaurant on my “free” weekend.

It was the early 80s. Need I say more?

We drank too much, flirted a lot, thought not at all and made a bet on who could hook up the quickest. Denise won, as usual, but I came in a strong second.

I hooked up with a route driver who delivered donuts and pastries to storefronts every morning. He seemed OK, but then everyone seems nice enough after two gin and tonics.

Because I felt guilty about hanging out with this route driver on a bet — the old Methodist-Catholic-Baptist tentacles clawed at my throat — out of guilt I agreed to go on a legitimate full-fledged “date” with him the next weekend.

Bad idea. I really did not like the guy.

A pity date.

Nothing worse.

Except maybe if you are the pity date, or if it becomes a pity … well, you get the gist.

I watched from behind a curtain as he walked up the sidewalk to my front door.

Did he have that bizarre combover last weekend? Shouldn’t I have noticed that when we were dancing under the disco ball?

He was very hairy. Thick swatches of untamed hair covered his arms and neck. I tried not to stare at his head. Or arms. Or neck.

We agreed to go to a movie. I love movies. I would have watched a movie with Genghis Khan.

We went to the nearest theater which was in a small city bout 30 miles away.

The Hairy Combover Donut Man talked and griped the entire time, about what a bad movie it was, about how he could not smoke, about how uncomfortable the seats were, about how hippies were a bunch of %$#*@!

I was confused and irritated. What the heck was he talking about? And why the heck was he talking? I had not seen a hippie for almost 14 years and that was in southern California. Plus, I could not hear the dialogue in the movie. I desperately wanted to tell him to shut the hell up, but that seemed a little too, well, too-me-too-soon.

By the middle of the movie, I wanted to slit his raspy-from-smoking throat. Which was definitely too-me-too-soon.

I hated him. He hated me.

And we still had about four hours to go.

After the movie we agreed – through gritted teeth – to go to a local bar for a drink. What the hell? I had gotten absolutely nothing out of it so far. Might as well score a rum and Coke.

We relocated to a nearby Holiday Inn, where a popular bar was located. We tried to talk like reasonable people who  actually cared what one another thought.

Screw that.

I wanted to push my cocktail stirrer through his carotid artery. But only after about an hour of merciless torture.

At one point, he asked how my job was going.

At the time, I was a sales representative for 20 counties in northern Indiana during the week while working weekends as a waitress. I was tired; have I mentioned that?

“It’s been a real bitch,” I said.

Which, quite honestly, it had been.

He looked at me as if I had told him females would one day rule the donut route driver industry – and make more money.

“I don’t like it when girls talk that way and say those kind of words,” he said.

Girls? Those kids of words?

I leaned in close and whispered sweetly, “So, I suppose ‘F*** you’ is out of the question?”

That’s when Mr. Donut Man abruptly got up and left me in a city that was about 40 miles from my home.

Luckily, I saw a couple I knew sitting at the bar and begged a ride. They’ve never forgotten it and neither have I.

I have not eaten a donut since.