I’m not sure why I do the Monday Memory, since my memory is notoriously bad, but …
Do you remember your first date? Now, for all those geeks amongst us I’m using a very broad definition of the word “date” here. It can just as easily be a cyber date. I don’t care if you met in person or not. Just tell us about your first date! (please)
Since my very first date is lost somewhere in the depths of prehistory, I’ll focus instead on my first date with Margie. Or, rather, the preliminaries thereto, since that’s pretty well-branded onto my cortex.
So let’s roll the clock back to, hmmm, 1993, when it was clear that Cheryl and I were not going to reconsile, and we were well-and-truly separated and on the road to divorce and all that. I worked in Pasadena. Margie worked in Pasadena, several blocks away. Margie and I were good, long-term friends from our golden college days, and we occasionally ate lunch together.
So a young man’s fancy started turning to, well, something more than just having lunch. Like … going on a date with Margie.
Fast Forward to a delightful lunch at the Olive Garden, chit-chatting idly with Margie. Or, uh, chit-chatting uncomfortably with Margie. Chit-chatting nervously. Doing a lot of staring at the breadsticks instead of chit-chatting.
‘Cause, you see, in order to ask Margie on a date, I’d have to tell her I liked her, in, y’know, that way. Romantic-like and all that. And if I did that, then who knows what might happen? Margie might laugh! And point! And ridicule me! And I’d die of shame, take to drink, and end up dying in a cardboard box in an alleyway! In a bad part of town!
Um. Anyway. We had a nice lunch, I guess. And we walked back to her office. And this little guy on my shoulder kept saying, “Tell her! Tell her! Tell her!” And I kept stuffing him in a cardboard box and throwing him into an alley …
Until I said good afternoon, thanks for lunch, etc., etc., and Margie, despite looking at me like I had some sort of strange nervous tic, or like I was sweating profusely (more than usual), or something like that, said so long.
And, of course, instantly I was seized by a towering anger at myself for being such a [expletives deleted] chicken, such that I stormed back to my office, keyed out a furious message to Margie about what a [expletives deleted] chicken I’d been, folded it up, stamped it, and threw it in the mail.
Of course, then I was in trouble …
Suffice it to say, I (a) told Margie shortly thereafter, before the letter arrived, and asked her out on a date, (b) learned that she’d figured something like that was up, but had been kind of chicken about inquiring, too, (c) ended up marrying her.
So far, no cardboard boxes in sight. Except in the basement.
Now if I could just remember the actual date …