Anecdote

Lauren Kinghorn

Word Count: 965

Have you ever had a moment where you think “Oh God what did I get myself into?”

I was having one of those moments as I curled my hair. I stood in my bathroom having just got home from work and was preparing to be picked up in under an hour. It was a first date. It was my first date ever. In my head I went through all the things wrong with this scenario. I’m twenty-four, I am happy being single, and I have no recollection of what he looks like. This is what happens when you say yes to a date while fully intoxicated on a Thursday night at the local bar.

“How was work?” My dad calls from his workshop.

“Fine,” I answer, still fiddling with my hair trying to get it just right.

“That’s good. What are you doing?”

My dad is now in the doorway of his shop looking down the hall at me. My going out on a Thursday night was not a surprise to him. However, doing my hair and applying makeup before going out was something he rarely saw.

“I’m going out,” I answer, trying to end the conversation there.

“Are Ryan and Joe coming to get you?”

“No, I’m not hanging out with them tonight.”

“Thal doesn’t drink, you aren’t going anywhere with her,” he mused. He had moved back into the shop but was yelling down the hall.

“No….I have….a date...” I trail off on the words. Saying them out loud makes them seem even more foreign.

“A date? With who?” My dad doesn’t even try to mask the surprise in his voice.

“I don’t wanna say,” I call back, focussing intensely on getting my makeup to look sexy, not slutty.

“Do I know him?”

“Yes…Stuart Yemen.”

“Stuart…isn’t he a little old for you?”

I pull my eyeliner away from my eye and sigh.

“He’s thirty-one, the same age as Craig.” Craig is my older brother.

“Oh, well where are you going?”

“I’m not sure, he’s picking me up at six.”

I finish putting on my lip gloss, give my hair one final spritz of hairspray and check the time.

Ten minutes to six.

I turn to my dad and smile.

“Well…have fun on your…uhhh…date.”

Date, it sounds even stranger coming out of my dad’s mouth.

I head upstairs to wait.

Six o’clock on the dot, a shiny red Ford F150 rolls up my snow-covered driveway.

To avoid my parents and this guy (that I have yet to get a clear visual of) meeting, I dart out the door before the truck has even made it fully in the driveway.

The truck parks and a stocky, tall, freckled blonde hops out of the cab.

“Hey, you didn’t even give me a chance to come get you at the door,” he says, smiling at me. His Ottawa Valley accent automatically makes me smile.

“Oh, was I supposed to?” The first of many first date faux-pas I would perform throughout the night.

We drove for twenty minutes to a town called Petawawa. It was the nearest semi-nice restaurant, Kelsey’s. I teased him about being a Leafs fan and we chatted the whole way there.

We got there and ran into a group of guys he knew from work, a few that I recognized from the bar. We ordered appetizers, which I then proceeded to spill into my lap, but I had given him fair warning that I would inevitably spill something. He kindly pretended not to see the spill and subtly handed me a napkin. I swore and swore again upon realizing I had just dropped an f-bomb mid first-date conversation. I shook my head and giggled at my own stupidity.

I talked and talked and talked, seemingly unable to stop the words from leaving my lips. All while playing with my necklace, sliding the pendant from one side of my neck to the other and back. I didn’t realize how much I was doing it until I blurted out something about how nervous I was and his reply was “no, really?” He smiled at me and mimicked playing with his own chain.

We enjoyed dinner, argued over the cheque (I gave in and let him pay) and headed back to Deep River.

Neither of us felt like going home, so we headed to the bar where we had first met to play some pool. He was a far better player than me, but I mocked him and used my feminine wiles to make him miss a few shots. I snuck up to the bar and paid our tab before he got a chance.

Stuart drove me back to my house around midnight and after teasing him mercilessly about what kind of man has a truck without four-wheel drive, I hopped out and so did he. He met me around the back of the truck and walked me up the steps to my front door.

I stood nervously; having never actually been on a first date, but having seen the walk to the door a million times in the movies, my head was spinning. What was going to happen?  

“I had a really good time, thank you.” I said smiling up at him.

“I had a good time too,” he said, his green eyes meeting mine.

He leaned down and kissed me. Now this may have been my first date, but it was not my first kiss. However I was not expecting the kiss he gave me. It was a closed-mouth peck and the most gentlemanly kiss I had ever had.

Reflecting back on this date with my now boyfriend, almost a year to the day, it still brings a smile to my face. It was my first, first date...and I think it was also my last.