by Alaina Hammond
My date said: “I’m a semi-professional athlete. Well, former collegiate athlete, if you want to get technical.”
I replied, “OK.”
For some reason he interpreted my response as a sign of enthusiasm and/or curiosity. As such, he continued.
“To answer your question: Junior varsity hockey, University of American Samoa.”
“Um. Saul Goodman’s alma mater is not a real school.”
“You got the reference! Congratulations, you passed my test!”
“Um. No shit I passed your test? Because…We met on a Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul fan forum. Also, it’s really weird that you’re testing me.”
“Yeah, but there are a high number of fake female fans on those forums.”
“To get…what, exactly? Fan-Dick?”
“You’d be surprised. Men who follow premium TV tend to be high status in other ways as well.”
“So women…pretend to be fans of quality TV, in order to trick those men. Rather than just watching the TV show for its own merits. No, we deliberately decide not to watch it, but rather pretend to watch it, in an effort to seduce men who watch it.”
“Hey, I never said your gender was logical!”
I confess I gave him a hand job on the ride home.
In my defense, he picked up the check.
And also, the traffic on Queens Boulevard can get awfully thick; what were we supposed to do? Listen to the radio? What is this, the early aughts? Or whenever it is that Better Call Saul takes place? The timeline seems deliberately vague.
He dropped me off and kissed my cheek, like a gentleman. I hope he used a wet wipe to clean his steering wheel at some point.
I haven’t been on the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul forums since then.
There’s gotta be an easier way for a college girl to find a date.
Alaina Hammond is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and visual artist. Her poems, plays, short stories, nonfiction, paintings, drawings and photographs have been published both online and in print. Her novelette “Jillian, Formerly Known as Frog Girl” was published by Bottlecap Press. Three of her flash fiction stories (Jane Passes The Bar Exam, To Serve In Retail Hell, As Numb As I Am) have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, all in 2025.
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