My First Date

{So I guess my blog is purple now. No turning back now. I guess we're all gonna have to just deal with it :) I'm also giving the "center-justified" look a try. I've seen it done on a couple of other friends' blogs, and I'll see if I even like it. If not, then it's back to left-justified for moi!}

Now on to STORYTIME!

The story of my first date ever surprisingly has not yet been recorded, and so I thought this would be a grand opportunity. Here goes nothin':

Once upon a time, in a faraway land about a half-thousand miles yonder, there lived a tall, gangly, bashful brunette who had just turned 16. The culture in which she was reared taught that the dating world is best entered when a person has reached the age of 16.

In retrospect, this brunette gal of the NOW remembers her past self feeling pretty anxious and possibly even squeamish about going on her first date. Ohhh but just you wait, 'enry 'iggins! The tale is just a'beginnin'!

Probably only like three days after her sixteenth birthday, she's chillin' like her favorite villain in the den of the house: a bright, windowy, sunshiny room with happy sunflower wallpaper. No telling what she was doing in there. Surely she wasn't up to no good... Maybe... We'll just say she was being studious with her schoolwork. It was the den, after all...

She heard the telephone ring down the hall, in the kitchen. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnng! Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnng!

Boys and girls, this telephone was CORDED. It was likely believed, at that time in history, that the only CELLPHONE that was currently in use by any human was Jerry Seinfeld with his cellphone on his sitcom. (Didn't he have that dinosaur cellphone with the foot-long antenna?) Anyway, this corded telephone was hunter green in color, and is still in perfectly good operation. I used it about a month ago. Mint condition. I seriously doubt you'd be able to give similar props to a fancy-pants iPhone in 20+ years from this moment; in fact, I'm sure the iPhone will have decomposed into dust long before then. (And it came to pass that I still do indeed own an iPhone.)

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnng! Remember how that is what the hunter green phone said? Mom picked it up in the kitchen down the hall. 16-year-old brunette gal could faintly hear her start to speak to whoever was on the other end of the line.

About 15 seconds passed...

"Alison! It's for you!" Mom was now standing in the sunflower room doorway. And then, beaming, she said in a thrilled yet slightly-less-exclamatory tone (lest she be overheard through the technology): "I think it's a boy who wants to ask you out on a date."

HASHTAG: HEARTRISESUPINTOTHROATANDTHUMPSUNCONTROLLABLY

Who could it be? Good gracious, who was this man?

Butterflies fluttered by every known organ in my body. But I couldn't not answer the call! Had to see who this boy was!

"Hello? ... Hello! How are you? ... Friday? Yes, that should be fine! ... Thank you! See you then! Bye!"

{Exclamation point after virtually almost every sentence I spake during that conversation. Why? BECAUSE I ALREADY HAD THE HUMONGOUSEST CRUSH ON HIM.}

His name shall not be named here, publicly, but what can be divulged is that his first name starts with a consonant, from the latter-half of the alphabet. Remember how on the final showdown round of Wheel of Fortune, that the letters that are automatically given to you are "R S T L N E"? (Reminiscent of the Goosebumps series' author R.L. Stine.) Well, the letter I have in mind is one of those, but it definitely is not E, since that, my friends, is what we call a vowel.

This young man, who had just asked young brunette gal on her first date ever, was on the yearbook staff with her. This guy and girl built beautiful, multiple-time award-winning yearbooks together. Romantic, that is? Yes, that is.

He had obviously awaited with eagerness Alison's long-overdue sixteenth birthday (yeah, let's just call her "Alison" now, instead of "brunette gal," because "brunette" and "gal" have already been established); it was not coincidence that he called her far less than 100 hours following the arrival of her age of eligibility. He knew the birthday was gonna happen. He and his dapper handsomeness were lurking in the dark corner, very much looking forward to the time he could ... um ... pounce?

So that Friday evening came around. No one remembers exactly what either party of the date was wearing. We know that there were shoes, probably jeans, plausibly a button-up shirt for the guy, a pretty blouse for the girl... oh wait... it's coming back to remembrance now... it was a coral-colored top with frillyish sleeves. It was lovely, most definitely. It's a fair bet that Alison's hair was worn long, down, and straight. She and him? They were lookin' good. Really good.

They ate something, dined somewhere. Don't remember where. But what was more important was the chain of events that followed dinner.

They found themselves in a local movie theatre, about ready to purchase flick tickets. Movie posters were hanging everywhere, high above everyone's heads. The movie poster that stood out the most in Alison's line of vision was "A Walk to Remember." She recalled that that wasn't a terrible book, and she thenceforth anticipated seeing the movie. The movie ended up being just a'ight.

But the movie that Alison and He-Who-Shan't-Be-Named-Here were scheduled to go see was none other than ... "Singles Ward." Totally a Mormon movie, yes, but she and her date were Mormon, and they loved their religion very much (still do!).

But the funny thing is that neither of them were actually old enough yet to even be in a singles ward. So when they watched the movie, they felt like they could relate to the characters a little, but not wholly. It was a decent show, though. Likable.

In case you were wondering, yes, Alison's first date was indeed what was culturally termed a "single date," and not a "group date." But please, fellow livers of this culture, do not frown upon this factoid of Alisonian history.

However... Alison did feel ever-so-slightly odd about it being a "single date," where it was just her and him. Group dates were at least culturally more ideal than one-on-one dates, as far as freshly new 16-year-olds who have absolutely NO idea how to be on a date are concerned.

But Alison's date was an excellent person, very mature for his age (even all the parents of the community thought so), so Alison felt as calm and rest-assured as could possibly be on a first date. He was a wonderful person to be around.

{In fact, a month or so after this date happened, the end-of-the-schoolyear-yearbook was finally made available, and when he wrote in and signed Alison's yearbook, he made sure to leave his phone number, and beckoned her to call him, should she decide that she wants another date with him. Ahhhh MAN, it was love, surely!}

Years zoomed by, and he married someone else. Alison deems it one of her sadder days in life, when she found out that he was going to marry another woman. But people move on. Life moves on. Ol' Man River, he just keeps rollin' along. Life is beautiful, and there are the monstrous Seven Seas as well as the five Great Lakes, and so there are plenty of quality fishes.

Thus ended the tale of Alison's first date.

Perhaps you enjoyed it.

Good night.