Bird Drones & Botanical Blessings

Sarah adjusted her posture for the sixth time, wondering if her "cautiously optimistic" facial expression had morphed into "mildly constipated." Kevin, her Hinge date, had arrived precisely seven minutes late, blaming a "sudden surge in geomagnetic activity affecting my bicycle's internal compass." Okay, quirky. She could handle quirky. His profile photo, after all, had promised a charming smile and a love for "existential pondering and artisanal cheese."

"So, Kevin," Sarah began, trying to steer the conversation away from the impending solar flare, "what do you do for fun when you're not battling cosmic forces?"

Kevin leaned in conspiratorially, his eyes wide. "Honestly, Sarah, my main passion is exposing the truth. Did you know, for example, that all birds are actually highly advanced government surveillance drones?"

Sarah paused, mid-sip of her Pinot Grigio. The liquid threatened to exit via her nostrils. "Birds? You mean... pigeons? Sparrows?"

"All of them! Robotic operatives, tracking our every move. Their 'singing' is just encrypted data transfer. That's why I only ever communicate via interpretive dance when outdoors." He demonstrated a brief, jerky movement that involved his elbows and an intense stare at a nearby potted fern.

Before Sarah could fully process the avian conspiracy, the waiter arrived with their appetizers. Kevin gasped, recoiling from the bruschetta. "Wait! Has this food been properly blessed?"

The waiter blinked. "Sir, it's just bruschetta."

"Exactly!" Kevin exclaimed, pulling a tiny succulent in a terracotta pot from his jacket pocket. "This is Bartholomew. He's a fourth-generation houseplant priest. Every meal must be blessed by Bartholomew to ensure it's free of negative energy and, you know, nanobots." Sarah watched in horrified fascination as Kevin held the succulent over the bruschetta, chanting softly in what sounded suspiciously like 'om-nom-nom' interspersed with 'bot-b-gone.' The entire restaurant seemed to have gone silent, all eyes on Bartholomew's holy mission.

"I... I suddenly remember I have a critically important meeting with my cat," Sarah announced, grabbing her purse with the urgency of a secret agent fleeing a laser grid. "He's very particular about his evening interpretive dance."

She made her escape, leaving Kevin to explain to the bewildered waiter why his heirloom tomato was refusing Bartholomew's blessing. Later, Sarah updated her Hinge profile, adding a new deal-breaker: "Must believe birds are real. And please, no plant priests." Her cat, meanwhile, seemed utterly unfazed by the sudden critical meeting, continuing his own sacred ritual of napping.