A Series...

I was inspired to begin recording a series of events in my life. My love life in particular. Funny or bizarre stories from my single life days. I love to look back on these days and be like, "wow. its amazing that I ended up married to Stu." Somedays I cringe when I think back and somedays I want to forget some of it. But for the most part, my dating history is nothing short of HILARIOUS.

Story #1 in a series of Dating Disasters.
 (note: names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals that may become embarassed)

Dumpster Diving is Given a New Meaning

It was a double-date. Me and my best friend, Leila, paired up with my current boyfriend Pete and one of our good guy friends, Jordan. Leila and I were getting ready at my house, waiting for the guys to pick us up. We looked cute. I was borrowing a shirt of Leila's and I admired myself in the top half of my full-length mirror as Leila took up the bottom half--sitting on the floor to get a better look at her face as she applied her makeup. Neither of us were big makeup girls and Leila was more into a natural look and I seemed to be the one who experimented with all the wrong eye shadow colors. We listened to our current favorite jams on a mixed CD I had made earlier that day. We were always making CD's and downloading new and old songs illegally from Napster. We finished getting ready just in time to hear the door bell ring. They're here!

We hurry out the door with the guys to avoid any potentially embarrassing conversation that might escape my parents mouths. We hop into Pete's old Camry and head to the movies. The boys seem to dominate the conversation--filling the car with asinine teenage-boy remarks that make Leila and I laugh hysterically, as highschool girls do at stupid conversation. We are all enjoying ourselves and I am silently happy that we were all friends and that none of this is blind-date-like.

We arrive at the movies and all pile out. Pete's large hand completely engulfs my small one as we walk into the theatre. We walk quickly ahead of Leila and Jordan, as Pete is a fast walker. I'm normally a slow walker and have short legs, but I keep up with his pace pretty well. I hear Leila laughing behind me as Jordan's nervous chit chat seems to engage her. Jordan is your typical class clown and will say and do anything for laughs. He's the guy who is jumping into the pool in the middle of winter or the guy who is shoving french fries up his nose during lunch. THAT guy. But, he's fun and a good date.

The boys pick the movie, which is fair as they are paying for it. We end up seeing "Mothman Prophecies." You know that old saying that goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover?" Well, in this case you can throw that ancient advice out the window. HORRIBLE TITLE = HORRIBLE MOVIE. We only get about fifteen minutes into the movie before we are all laughing hysterically at its sad attempt to be interesting. Terrible acting floods the screen as the even more terrible plot unfolds. At least we are getting a good time out of it. An expensive but good time.

The movie finally ends and we are the first ones out the door. We are on the way home and our hysterical evening seems to provoke the boys to get into anything else that could potentially keep the girls laughing. We pass a mall with a few souped up cars and their owners loitering and admiring each other's rides. The owners include the city's "finest" who have felt the need to add sparkly accents to their mediocre cars to make them seem more appealing. You know the crowd. A bunch of kids who own Civics or some other kind of Honda and add ground effects and colored rims. The kids who put racing stripes down their Toyota Camry's and hang dice from their mirrors. They all stand around and lean against their cheaply painted cars and listen to music that blares from rattling systems built into their trunks. THOSE KIDS. The perfect candidates for the clowns Leila and I are spending our evening with.

Pete pulls into the parking lot and swings by the ghetto car convention. He rolls down the window as Jordan follows. The boys start yelling out mild profanities at the crowd in attempt to make fun of their odd hobby. To Leila and I's horror and confusion. We don't understand what provokes the boys' behavior as this does not impress us or make us let out even the tiniest giggle. We just want to get away from these thugs who stand in the green light of their cars' undercarriages. "What Up G?!" shouts one of the idiots we are stuck in the same car with.

Much to their dismay, the gay car crowd doesn't seem to care about the stupid boys yelling from the plain Camry windows. They don't seem to care that they are trying to make fun of them. Leila and I are relieved but our relief quickly turns into stress. The once apathetic car thugs are now very adamant about showing just how cool their cars can be. All at once the crowd disperses and they all jump into their cars. We are still pulling away when we see a line of cars in all varieties of extras chasing our boring little Camry. We race around the mall parking lot with the other cars circling around us. They are now yelling out of THEIR windows and are signaling for us to pull over so that they can what Leila and I believe to be beat us up and steal our purses. We are all panicked now and our once hysterical evening seems to be something in the very distant past. We are being cornered and surrounded and feel that something very bad is about to go down.

Somehow we find a loop hole and escape the mall parking lot. We lose the crowd for a quick minute and we race down the street. My own screaming and girly screeching is drowned out by what I thought was Leila's even higher pitched wails. I turn around to see Jordan in Leila's lap screaming like a little girl. At that point it was not humorous, but now that image alone can cheer me up on a bad day.

We pull into an apartment complex and behind a dumpster. We cut the lights and all inhale. No one breathes or moves. We sit in silence for a long while. We are just positive the thugs lie waiting for us with bats and other weapons that will crush our bones. We sit behind that dumpster for probably half an hour. Someone finally lets out a nervous guffaw and then we are all rolling out of sheer relief. We have escaped them! The gang of dressed-up average cars is gone!

The boys take us home and we all admit that this was the most interesting double-date we have ever been on. I still laugh when I see a car with ground effects or a group of car enthusiasts parked in a circle outside of a Taco Bell.