Blind Cheap Dates

As a teenage girl, I think I dated nearly every guy in the IGA, Food City, and Wal-Mart that I worked at from ages 16 to 19. I did work in a daycare once, but there were only women there and I soon grew bored. So I went back to another Food City where I could be around people, namely guys. I was always a big flirt, and I knew it. I loved it. I liked the fact that I was able to flirt, date, and move on from one bag boy to the next without any problems. Sure, there was a little bit of drama between me and the other cashiers from time to time, but no eggs were ever broken and everyone clocked out intact at the end of the day.

I thought I had met the man of my dreams when I was 17. He was very handsome, tall, athletic, and witty. He really swept me off my feet. He even proposed to me when I was 18, and I was smitten. Then he started avoiding me, my phone calls, and my pages and I was so mad I could've spit nails! So what did I do as an angry, broken-hearted, 18 year old? I went to the hospital where he worked to hunt him down like dying prey! We fought and fought and came to no conclusions, so I punched him square in his jaw and left sobbing. I threw my ring in a trash can that night. I thought my world had ended. I had to have some closure, so I invited him over a few days later and he came clean. He had slept with some girl in his college class and couldn't face me with it, and that's why he had tried just ignoring me. At first, I took all this information really well. Then I ended up locking him out of my parents' house and calling his mom and tattling on him like a small child. The look on his face when I screamed at him through the screen door that I was on the phone with his mother, though, was priceless!

After about two whole months of healing my forever broken heart, I started meaningless dating again. At least I had somewhere to go and a free meal. I was in college now, too, which I really enjoyed. Oddly, I never did date any guys from college. I guess I hadn't run out of grocery store guys yet. After breaking up with the last guy left at Food City, I didn't know where to turn. I thought surely someone new would be hired to push buggies in, but they weren't. This was an odd time for me. None of the bag boys I was working with was interested in me anymore, and I was stuck. No one to flirt with. No one to string along. What's a girl to do?

Well, on Wednesday night at church my friend of many years whispers to me during the service, "Oh yeah. Some guy may be calling you tonight. He's a friend of my boyfriend's and he wanted to meet a girl, so I told him to give him your number. We're all four supposed to go out sometime." Man! I'd never, ever, ever been on a blind date. I didn't like the thoughts of having to go out in public with someone I didn't know in any form or fashion. I could've killed my friend. At times, I wish I would've, but it's too late for all that now.

I was so very nervous about the phone ringing that night. I sat right on top of it like I was a mother hen trying to hatch her egg. Finally, it rang. I hopped on it like a 2 year old hops on an M&M that's been dropped. I was totally unprepared for what I heard on the other end. Where in the world did this guy come from? He sounded like he had been hiding out in the most remote part of Tennessee where they didn't know any English. What a country voice! I couldn't help but giggle. He tried to tell me he was drinking Kool-Aid, and I just about didn't figure out what "coal ed" was. Then this mystery man lied and told me he was 33 right before he got a beep and had to call me back. So I hung up the phone in complete shock that my friend would give my number out to a 33-year-old, country bumpkin who neither she nor I had ever seen before!

When the phone rang again, I was even more intrigued and jumped right back on. I told him this just wasn't going to work out since he was 33. He started laughing because he was really only 20 and had forgotten he told me he was 33. What a jerk! Nevertheless, before we got off the phone we had a date planned for that coming Sunday evening. We would meet at a church neither of us went to so we couldn't stalk one another if the feelings weren't mutual.

The three days I waited for that blind date were probably the longest three days of my life. I just kept hearing his hick voice on the phone every time we talked and I was scared. What was even scarier was the fact that his hick voice was starting to seem cuter and cuter each time I heard it. By Sunday morning, I couldn't wait for the night service to come so I could meet my mystery man. My friend and I rode together. I was so nervous. I can barely drive anyway, and that night I ran a stop light and everything trying to get to that church. Lord forgive me!

We finally made it to the church. Of course we had to go powder our noses. While in the bathroom I was telling my friend how neat it would be if I walked out of the bathroom and there he was. So I walked out of the bathroom and a guy was standing there. My stomach flipped. He looked nice enough. He had on neat kakhi pants, a button up shirt, dark hair with a mustache, and gorgeous blue eyes. So I marched right over to him and said, "Are you Jimmy?" He said no. I was so embarassed! I immediately started apologizing and wondered how in the world I was going to explain to this guy why I was trying to pick up men in church! By the time I was halfway through my spill, the guy started laughing and informed me he was indeed who I was supposed to meet. Again, what a jerk!

To make a very long story short, we had our first date alone the next night. It was a much nicer date. With his college income, he was able to bring a movie to my house and take me out to Wendy's for a chicken sandwhich after his baseball practice that day. We had our first kiss on my parents' front porch that very night, and we both knew something different was stirring in the air - and it wasn't chicken sandwhich breath, either!

To be continued....