#22 Melanie

Melanie C.: Melanie, you ball of energy, you, the words to an appopriate love song come to mind: "Now we're standing face to face. Isn't this world a crazy place? Just when I thought our chance had passed, you go and save the best for last." Thanks for giving Bachelor Rick a second chance. But did he really save the best for last?



Date Recap: The very last of Bachelor Rick's first dates starts off at the beach where he meets up with a pint size blonde ball of energy named Melanie. Since the two kinda-sorta know/knew/once met each other, the date starts with a big reunion hug and Mel reveals that they're going to be doing a little photo shoot around the beach, develop the photos and then place said photos in the picture frames at Walmart. Okay. Sounds like a fun plan. Luckily, the two have quite the crazy personalities that work for something like this. Would this date idea have worked with previous dates? Possibly. But with a certain geologist, artist or latina, it just may have been all the more awkward. The two take all sorts of silly engagementesque type pictures and are having a ball doing it. At least you can tell our new friend here is. Seriously, do you think she drank one of those five-hour energy drinks before the date? She seems a little hyper. Maybe she just had some pent-up energy built up from her flight over? Oh and what's this? Mel reveals her father wanted to speak with Bachelor Rick before the date. On behalf of all of us, but mostly on behalf of Bachelor Rick, thanks for putting that phone call on-hold for awhile, Melanie. But don't worry, her dad sent a t-shirt along. Oh dear. "CTR girl." Translate: Choose the Right girl. Bachelor Rick chooses to take the nice way out of this one and actually puts the shirt on. Good for you for being a good sport, Richard. But of course when you're THE Mormon Bachelor and you can tell your date is so excited about something that you think is kinda lame, you have no choice but to go with it for their sake. Oh, and until we can truly determine how strong Bachelor Rick is, ladies it's probably best to refrain from running and jumping into his arms from here on out. Seriously, what is it with these ladies? Although he has improved somewhat with the staggering backward/almost dropping the girl since the last run and jump attempt back at date #11. After the two are done taking mock-proposal pictures Melanie feels the need to show us a text she just reveived: "CTR!" Okay, come on now. It wasn't even funny the first time. But Melanie is still really enthused about it. While they wait to get the photos developed, they eat at a Japanese cook-your-own meat kinda place where the grills appear to resemble a common home-heating vent. Bachelor Rick wins Melanie over with his magic jumping toothpick trick. Maybe the conversation was lagging? From there Melanie literally bounces down the aises of Walmart unable to contain herself. Calm down there, Melanie. Take a deep breath. She's quite enthused over these pictures, but it's all going to be okay. I promise your idea is your own and no one is going to beat you to the photo aisle with their own photos. Easy now. The two complete the Walmart photo frame makeovers and head out to the parking lot for a goodbye hug. No goodbye kiss? I know, we were disappointed, too.

First Impression: Wow. This girl had some fire in her, didn't she? Whooo! WHOOO! Okay, I think I got it all out. Just one more comment: Umm, ahem. Melanie? Have you ever heard of the concept of a camisole? You're low cut tee is cute but revealing a tad more than we want to see, although I'm sure Bachelor Rick didn't mind.

Second Date Potential: From Bachelor Rick's date recap we know he had asked Melanie out previously (just how long ago, we're not sure) and she turned him down. Ouch! Will he get back at her by not asking her out again? Rick doesn't really seem like that kinda guy, but you never know. But what kind of girl turns a guy down on a date because she's moving in a week? That's so weird. It's just a date. Who cares if you're moving in a week? He didn't ask her to marry him (yet, anyway)! We don't get that. If there's a date # 2 maybe Mel can explain that to us?

TMB Excitement Level: Bachelor Rick is definitely attracted to Melanie and sees some potential, otherwise he never would have asked her out in the first place. That's not hard to follow. However, I will say this. He didn't kiss her and he totally could have. He claims it's because she was too cute to kiss in a Walmart parking lot. But we don't buy that. Come on, he kissed Sam #1 at a ghetto neighorhood amusement park for goodness sake, so he can't use that excuse on us. If a guy wants to kiss a girl he's not going to care where it is. In fact, wouldn't it be a really funny story someday to tell your kids, "Our first kiss was in a Walmart parking lot"?

Creativity: Because she's the last date and because her date idea actually was really awesome, we're going to dish out our first ever 10 even though the restaurant idea probably wasn't the best since if she had of watched even one of his previous dates she probably would have known he doesn't like to cook (if someone eats out over 90% of the time, it can't really be that he simply doesn't know how to cook. He's got to outright hate it.).

Final Thoughts: Melanie, you confuse me. You turned Bachelor Rick down for a date when he asked you out because you were moving to Ohio a week later but then something must have happened in Ohio when you saw that your lost-love was going to be the Mormon Bachelor, like perhaps feelings of regret started creeping up inside of you and you thought wait, he asked me out, so he can't go out with all these other girls, don't they know he asked ME out--he did and they can't have him, so you decided even though you had turned him down earlier because you were moving to Ohio and you never stop to think that maybe Rick thought that it was lame that you turned him down just because you were moving to Ohio and that you hurt his feelings all because of OHIO, you think that it must be okay to fly FROM Ohio to take Rick out on a date because maybe you had feelings for him afterall and you really, really need to redeem yourself so that Rick will like you again and not hate you for turning him down just because you were moving to Ohio, so you decided that yeah, I will fly back to California from Ohio to go out with him because I was dumb for not going out with him earlier and there are just no men in Ohio that compare to Dr. Buck and darn me for turning him down while I was in California because now I have to fly all the way from Ohio to go out with him when I just could have gone out with him when I was actually in California in the first place and we could have been married by now and I could be back in California married to a dentist instead of sitting here in dang Ohio!!! Dumb me, dumb me, dumb me! Life is rough, isn't it Melanie? Let this be a lesson to all of us.