"What do you mean I must like dogs?"

Bob Brisket had driven to pick up Sue Sontag for a date. He'd made the mistake of pulling past her --distracted as he was by her outfit-- and squealed to a stop with his noisy brakes. She now sat next to him radiating first pomegranate then strawberry. The mixture struck him as smelling cheap.

"That bumper sticker on the back of your car. I thought you were a dog person."

"Oh, you mean the 'Dog is my co-pilot,' bumper sticker? It came with the car."

"You don't like dogs?"

"Can't stand them. They shed, bark, have fleas, and chew up your stuff."

Bob watched her pull a stick from her purse and gloss her lips. She re-seated the stick and looked at him. "So it's a ruse. You drive a car that makes girls think you own a dog, and you hate dogs. Do I have that right?"

"I owned a dog once. Actually my folks did. I was a boy. I could throw a Frisbee and he would catch it." Bob waited for Sue to put on her seat belt. He didn't want to get a ticket.

"That's it?" She looked at him without a smile. "You threw a Frisbee and that makes you a dog person?"

Bob thought about that. "Yeah. I guess I'm lucky the bumper sticker didn't say, 'Baby on Board.'" He laughed at his own joke.

"So you don't like kids either?"

"What do you mean?"

"You don't have a baby on board, but you said you did. So it's just like the dog. Only I bet you never threw a Frisbee to a baby when you were a boy."

It dawned on Bob that his date might never put on her seat belt. "You going to put on your seat belt so we can go?"

"No." Sue crossed her arms and looked hard at him. "Let's talk for a while."

"I didn't do anything! Why are you being so hard on me anyway? I mean the bumper sticker really did come with the car."

"That's not the point."

"What do you mean?"

"You're basically --at your core I mean-- a dishonest person. You say one thing with your car. You say something else entirely to me. How could I ever trust you?"

"It's just a bumper sticker!"

"I think this date is over."

"What do you mean?"

"Bye Bob." Sue opened the car door. The overhead light came on. She looked up and noticed the ceiling in the car for the first time. Hand prints had been pressed into it.

Bob noticed her glance up and frown. "They came with the car."

"Bye Bob." She got out and slammed the door.

Bob watched her walk up the front steps of her apartment building and vanish inside. She never looked back. Not once.

Bob scratched his head and thought. "I wonder how you take a bumper sticker off?"

Nobody answered, of course. He was alone in his car. Bob started the engine and drove home. He was half way home when he realized the radio was off. He turned it on and sang with it the rest of the way. It was a country song about dogs.