Well, that may have happened to you, but it sure didn’t happen to me. My date with Ted Lawson, aka Tommy the Termite, was an utter disaster, the Titanic of blind dates.

Sure, Ted was handsome. But he was also a self-centered, self-serving cheapskate egomaniac. And those were his good points.

At the beginning, of course, I didn’t know all this. I was actually foolish enough to think it might be a pleasant evening. After putting the daisies in water and saying goodbye to Prozac, we headed outside to Ted’s “previously owned” Mercedes. It was previously owned, all right. No doubt by a member of the Soprano family. I do not lie when I tell you there were bullet holes on the passenger side of the car. My first omen that the evening was not going to be the date of my dreams. An omen I should have paid attention to.

“I made reservations at a terrific restaurant in Westwood,” Ted said. “You’re going to love it.”

So we drove over to Westwood Village, the Mercedes belching noxious plumes of smoke into the air. Ted spent the entire time talking about the traffic he encountered on the 405 freeway on his way to pick me up. (It was bumper to bumper all the way from Ventura to Santa Monica Boulevard, in case you’re interested.) Okay, so it wasn’t the snappiest conversation I’d ever heard. But I figured maybe he was nervous. Or maybe he was a traffic aficionado. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

About half a mile away from Westwood, he pulled into a residential street and parked the car.

“I thought we were going to Westwood,” I said.

“We are.”

“But it’s at least a dozen blocks away.”

“I know,” he said, checking his profile in the rearview mirror, “I thought it would be fun to get some exercise.”

Translation: I’m too cheap to spring for valet parking. Or a parking lot. Or even metered parking.

So we trekked sixteen blocks (but who’s counting?) in the damp night air into Westwood. You’ll be glad to know Ted had stopped talking about traffic on the 405. Now he was talking about traffic on the 110.

“You should have seen it. There was a semi jackknifed across three lanes. Traffic was backed up for miles in both directions.”

Well, at least those people were sitting comfortably in their cars, not clomping through the fog in tight boots. By now, my feet were killing me, and my hair was so wiry, you could’ve used it to scour pots.

At last we made it to Westwood.

“Right this way,” Ted said, taking me by the hand. Up ahead I could see an Arby’s. For a frightening instant I thought that’s where we were going. After all, Ted had made me trek halfway across town to save a buck on a parking meter.

But no, he lead me past Arby’s to a charming restaurant nestled in an old brick building. Hmm. Maybe I’d misjudged the guy. Maybe he wasn’t a cheapskate. Maybe he really did want to get some exercise. After all, he was an actor. He had to keep in shape.