Dates, Dates, Dates

....and I'm not talking about the ones you eat. (Unless you are a vampire or a zombie, in which case you might eat this kind of date as well...)

It seems you commenters have reached a consensus: you want my bad date stories. (And, oh boy, do I ever have a PLETHORA of those.) Sooooo.....where to start? Perhaps the beginning; that's always a good place.

My first (real) date:

It was my sophomore year of high school. One of my guy friends from school, we'll call him "Brad", called me up at the beginning of the week. The phone call was a little awkward, and I wondered why he sounded so nervous. We didn't talk a whole lot at school generally--we were mostly just friendly acquaintances--but he seemed more jumpy than usual.

At one point in our very short conversation he said something like this:

"So, I was wondering. Um...Tom and I were planning this thing...we want to get a bunch of people to go see Spiderman 2 on Friday...would you wanna go?"

So that doesn't sound like a date right? It sounds like "a bunch of people" going to see a movie together.

"Sure!" I said, "I've been wanting to see that; sounds fun. What time?"

"Well, it starts at seven so..."

Then the conversation was awkwardly ended.

So Friday rolls around, and at about 6:45 after hurriedly getting ready for a casual movie with my friends, I leave the house, my parents' crappy ford windstar in tow. I get to the theater, buy my ticket, and wait for about ten minutes for the "bunch of people" to get there.

I began to wonder where they were as time ticked closer and closer to 7:00.

"Kiera!" I looked up at the sound of my name. The voice surprised me because it was one I recognized, but CERTAINLY not one I was expecting.

"Mom?" I was completely flaberghasted. Mom looked like she had something important to tell me; her hands grasping around as if that would help her figure out what to say next.

"Kiera, Brad came over to the house to pick you up for a date! Why are you here already?!"

And so, I ended up selling my ticket back to the theater (after my mom embarrassingly explained the whole situation to the woman at the register) and meeting my "date" in the lobby. My mom and dad had both come in the car so that my mom could drive the van home, allowing me to ride with my date and our group in their car for the remainder of the evening.

The worst part was going back through the ticket line, Brad paying for my ticket this time, and enduring the cash register lady's extremely obvious amusement. Brad noticed it, too, but had no idea why she was so entertained. She leaned forward and said something to the effect of, "Oh, it's nothing. I just know this girl's mom, and I've seen her coming into this theater since she was little. It's just so cute to see her growing up and on a date!" I'm SO glad she said that. It DEFINITELY improved this situation and didn't make it more HUMILIATING at ALL.

The rest of the "date" was fine, but the entire time I was inwardly agonizing about how dumb the beginning had been; to this day I still wonder if I just missed something in the phone conversation that should have tipped me off that the movie invite was a date and not a hang-out, but I've never been able to discover it.

I was going to share more than one "bad date" story, but I'm pretty sure this post will end up ridiculously lengthy if I do, so I'll end it here.

This has been Bad Date Story Hour with Kiera. Tune in next time for more exciting tales of woe.

Under-Appreciated Vocabulary Word of the Day:
anadipsia (n): an incredible desire to drink any kind of liquid