That didn't sound right to Jasper; he was sure the perfect date fodder was supposed to make a man look good, not ridiculous and incompetent, but maybe if they were swapping stories he'd feel less awful about his missteps. Besides, she was so impressed with the coffee and cookies this story might not even register, or at least even out. He grinned back, sitting forward in his seat again with his cup on the table, assuring, "That's not all I can do," before he launched into his embarrassment.
"Okay, here's one: high school. I'm lanky and bug-eyed and weird looking, she's perfect and beautiful and has no idea that I exist. Dream girl, every guy was into her. I think: I'm pretty okay, I'm better than some of these jockstraps who couldn't even keep up with her, I just need to get her attention. And then, like magic, my opportunity arises; my buddy asks me, ever heard of the milk challenge?" Jasper paused, narrowing his eyes at Jan to gauge if she knew where this was going, nodding slowly to confirm how awful it could be. "His rules were half an hour, one gallon, and he'll give me ten bucks. And I thought, I could do that every day, I'm a man." With a deep breath, Jasper set the stage, sweeping a hand across the table to explain, "So he sets it up one lunch hour, we have the jug here, and I'm sitting here, and about a hundred people I've never talked to in my life are already watching. I'm not even bothered, I start chugging, and I think I'm the coolest guy alive because these people who wouldn't look twice at me at cheering me on like an American hero. It goes down easy, I'm not even thinking about it. Then I see her; she's right next to me, in this little pink sweater and her hair is down and bone straight and she looks just like a perfect doll, and she's clapping, for me. So I turned to her, and I opened my mouth, and I barely even had time to register that it was coming back up; it was like the Exorcist, the milk just shot out of me like a fountain. All over her, I think I blacked out for a minute. It was awful. That was probably, easily, the worst day of her life, I ruined her sweater, she couldn't even look at me after that without going a little pale. Awful." And, great, Jasper, you just told a story about vomit while your date was trying to eat a cookie. He cleared his throat and laughed weakly at himself before taking a long, careful sip from his coffee to hide in the mug.