The meaning of ToST—pronounced "toast"—may be lost to the sands of time. The name and its obscure three-quarters capitalization are a legacy of the original owners of the popular Fremont lounge, who sold it a year and a half ago, and no one now seems to know what the big idea was. The name of the speed dating that ToST hosts is HurryDate. Presumably the space between the two words has been elided to create a sense of urgency; exclamation marks abound on HurryDate's website, lending the endeavor an air of hysteria ("HurryDate is one-stop dating!... Sound crazy? It is! But that's why it's so much fun!"). The company's logo involves what looks like a green olive with a heart stuck to it impaled upon a toothpick, providing the comforting subliminal implication that if love fails to materialize, there's always a martini. At ToST, drink specials extended to HurryDaters are "$3 dollar wells & $2.50 pints of beer!"

For their "10 to 15 five-minute dates in one night!" HurryDater duos are seated at tables marked by folded tents of paper with letters printed on them in one-million-point font. "A" and "F" are currently unoccupied, while "C" and "D" are either for the men who love men or are holding pens for surplus males. (The latter seems more likely, as listings for future HurryDating at ToST—every Wednesday in April!—prove to be uniformly heterosexual in orientation. But would-be HurryDaters should check for events from which gentiles are excluded.) Everybody has name tags stuck to their chests except the HurryDate referee, a very thin woman with very straight hair; a whistle and a stopwatch hang around her neck. She blows the whistle at approximately one-quarter volume, perhaps as a gesture to a group of non-HurryDaters drinking pitchers of beer nearby. It's the signal to move on to the next pairing; a woman clearly being bored by a man at "G" has the good grace not to look relieved. The HurryDaters are notably, improbably attractive, benign, unexcruciated—they do, in fact, appear to be having fun.

In a fresh coupling, a dark-haired woman exhibits interested behavior torn from the pages of a women's magazine, clasping her hands under her chin, making frequent eye contact, tilting her head to the side. She looks ready for a role on a Fox series, and ToST makes an excellent urbane-garage-club set with its corrugated metal ceiling, cement floor, dozens of aqua glass lights glowing. The whistle is blown again, and Women'sMagazine ends up at a table with HottestGuy. She immediately leans forward, laughs, and begins toying with a lock of her hair. Within nanoseconds, they preemptively get up and walk out together, disproving the notion that you can't hurry love.

HurryDate draws to a close. As the referee quickly gathers up the letters, three remaining HurryDaters sit down together at the table formerly known as "B." "How're you doing?" one asks another. "Oh god!" she replies, laughing.

ToST, 513 N 36th St, 547-0240.