First Date

Saturday morning (11am) rolls around in all its sunshiny glory. I am a nervous wreck. I can hardly believe that I am going to call B.J. and try to figure out how to get to his house on the other side of town, the rich side of town.

I heave a few humongously deep breaths and phone him. He's pleasant, cheerful, and gives me his address.

"Do you know how to get here? Do you need more directions that that?" He asks, already considerate of how I may or may not be directionally challenged.

"No. I think I know how to get there." I lie. Flat-out, through my teeth lied. I have not the foggiest clue of where his house is or even less, how to get there. "So, I'll see you as soon as I get there!"

"Great. See you soon." Click.

I'm thinking to myself, I'll just look up a city map in the phonebook (this is before Mapquest, or at least before I knew how to access maps online--at this point in time it's like $1.99/minute to use the Internet. Hard to believe we actually paid for it by the minute.). I locate his street and the cross street he gave, so I'll just follow the streets across the city that look like they're the most direct routes.

WRONG!

I climb into my dirty car and try to traverse the city. I was so painfully naive. It was quite a lesson in city planning, for me, that afternoon. I had no idea how many streets dead-end and are one-way and not marked as such on the map in the phonebook. As I'm driving, and getting more and more lost (no cell phone, those days, either) the minutes are ticking by. I began to worry that he would think I blew him off, and that I wasn't going to show up because by this time it has nearly been an hour! The drive, he said, should be about 20 minutes. Oh, man, was I a wreck.

Finally, by the mercy of God (whom I didn't know, at that time, either) I made it to his house. He teased me good-naturedly about how long it took me to get there, but at least I'd arrived.

He told me how to drive half-way around the block to access the alley that led to his back-yard/driveway. That was quite a little adventure in and of itself. See, my car was a little Plymouth Colt (aka Mitsubishi Mirage) and at its stock sitting height it could conservatively be called a 'low-rider'. It was a small wonder how I managed to navigate my little car up the steep driveway that led into the alleyway without tearing a hole in the oil pan!

At any rate, I'd finally arrived at B.J.'s house, safe and sound, albeit 40 minutes later than originally anticipated. B.J. had all the accouterments needed to clean my car (in all actuality he wound up detailing my car for me) and he had me park myself on the edge of his porch while he went to work.

In retrospect, I can't believe what I chose to wear. On that 'first' date I showed up at his house with my hair in a ponytail, a pair of Nike's, black sweats, and a t-shirt that said "Fukengruven" (a la the old VW ads that utilized "Fahrvergnügen" in their campaign).

Doh!! (Clearly, I was not thinking)

B.J. was not the slightest bit daunted (or at least he didn't appear so). He cleaned my car, until it was its proverbial 'squeaky' self. And then he came and sat down on the porch next to me.

My heart must have been pounding at least loud enough for the surrounding zip-code to hear it. We made some small talk for a few minutes, but before it knew it he was scooting closer and closer to me. He was right next to me! Aak!

I kept thinking to myself, I really sort of like this guy. He seems so genuine and sweet and thoughtful.

That was when he leaned over and kissed me. Our first kiss was right there, that sunny sun-drenched March 9, 1996 afternoon, sitting on the edge of his porch, our legs dangling, with a view of my very shiny and newly clean little purple car. I'll tell you this much, electricity surged through his lips to mine. Not only was he a good kisser, but there was some instant chemistry.

Oh, yes, chemistry indeed...