Round 3 of stories my mother would be angry at me for posting. Let's take it back to a story from before I was born. My older brother and sister were around preschool age and my mom was recently divorced, working as a waitress for Village Inn. Her mother is a classic Spanish lady with strong belief in traditional values. So being as my mom was single and raising two kids... My grandmother constantly set my mom up on dates that always ended in terrible failure, in hopes my mom would find a handsome new husband. This is the story of the most epic blind date fail in dating history. Try and top it, I would love to hear it.

     My grandmother met a very handsome man at the greyhound racetrack named Miodrag Vujisic. He had just moved to the states from Yugolslavia and made quite an impression on granny. She arranged for him to meet with my mom for dinner shortly after and the the night went as follows.

     Over drinks and food, my mom became smitten with Miodrag right away. They spent a few hours in the restaurant getting to know each other and sharing stories. As small talk goes, they got on the topic of work. My mom told him about how she loves waitressing because of the social interaction, and asked him about his work. That's when things got a little weird. He said he was really enjoying her company and didn't want to make her uncomfortable by talking about his job. Of course, that would make any human being a million times more curious about it. After reassuring him that she isn't one to judge until she's been put into someone's position, he discloses that... get this... He's an actual, real life, mercenary that had recently arrived in the U.S. on a visa. My mom casually blows it off by saying "Listen, everyone has different beliefs and I think that's fine as long as nobody imposes their faith on one another. I'd honestly rather not talk about that subject." He looked shock, but taking what she said with grace, never mentioned it again.

     The date was a great success and within a few months, they were happily married. After a month or so, my mom's older sister, Candy, became suspicious of Miodrag. He never wanted to talk about work and his reason was always "Out of respect for your sister, I don't talk about that kind of thing." Miodrag wasn't aware of the fact that Candy works for Federal Pretrial Services.

     One day Candy took it upon herself to plug his name into a search in the database at work. Within hours, there were three federal agents at her desk inquiring as to why she was searching for Mr. Vujisic. She told them that he is the husband of her little sister and that she had gotten bad vibes from him from the day she met him. After proper warrants were filed, it only took a couple days before the FBI surrounded my mother's house and whisked him away. The whole time, my mom was insisting that "You guys have the WRONG man. Miodrag does church work, for Christ's sake!" I'm pretty sure they thought my mom had a mental disorder. After all, what kind of a person does it take to confuse mercenary with missionary? My mom's sister explained the difference and she ended up doing the walk of shame with divorce papers through prison. She filled in one of the cops on what had happened and could hear their muffled laughter as she left the prison.

     That was around 1985 and to this day, it's a recurring joke at family reunions. Neither my mom, nor my grandma will ever live it down. I could not make this shit up. I'm sorry mom! Please don't hate me!