Kool-Aid

It all began with a dating survey on campus.  I don’t know why I filled it out, but I did.  I saw the results.  And, oh dear, they were less than satisfactory.  I threw it away never to think of it again. 

In the meantime, during a lecture on William Tyndale, there sat a young fellow named Brent across the classroom with the results in hand and eyes on me.

 There is a natural detector built into every woman.  There is no other detector in the world as effective as the woman’s.  It sends blaring, flashing internal signals whenever a boy is staring at the back of her head.  She can sense instantly whenever the opposite sex is on the prowl and she just came into his view.  It’s miraculous.  And with this miraculous, innate detector, I felt Brent staring right at me.  Shivers instantly shot down my spine.  Flight instinctively took over and I spent the next several weeks actively avoiding him in the classroom and in the cafeteria.  I became an expert evader.   Every time I walked into class, shields went up and I watched Brent with my hawk-eyes.  Every time I sat down for a meal in the cafeteria, I watched him and efficaciously hid from his searching view.   I was spectacular.

I must have been tired that day because my guard was down.  He came out of nowhere.  I didn’t even sense him nearby.   I was piling my plate high with a chickpea salad and as I quickly turned to my right, he was right there, gawking directly at my face.  He was within kissing distance.  Oh creeeeepy.  

“Jana, will you go out with me Friday?”

Completely shocked and off balance, I reverted to my predetermined, standard first- date answer and said, “Yes…uh….yeah…uh.  Ok.”

Did I seriously just say YES?  Too late.  I couldn’t take it back now.  I had another idea instead.

“I’m actually busy Friday night,” I said hoping I’d be busy, but not actually sure.

“Oh that’s ok.  I have to work Friday night anyway.  I was thinking we could go for a late lunch before I work.”

Darn it.

“Ok.  That works for me.” Argh.

“I’ll pick you up at two o’clock,” and Brent took off just as quickly as he appeared.   

I stood there stunned at myself for actually saying yes.  I always say yes to a first date, but I already knew of this guy and I already knew that we were completely and 100% incompatible.  He was strange, nerdy, and a recluse.  He pretended to play drums in class all the time.  Yikes.  I should have said no.  He probably would appreciate me more for saying no instead of saying yes and having a miserable time.  Lucky for me though, I did end up getting asked out for a date Friday night by a guy I liked, so I had a substantial excuse for hurrying my date with Brent along.  

Friday arrived and my excitement for date #2 filled me, but was quickly overcome by a nervous unsettling in my stomach for my first date of the evening with Brent.  

Brent picked me up promptly at 2 o’ clock and off we went in his blue Toyota up into the mountains.  We drove for what seemed like FOREVER.  After about 15 minutes in the car, I had no idea where we were.  I started getting a little scared.  After another 15, he pulled off onto the side of the road and towards some trees.  I sat nervously in the car.  What the heck was going on?  I was in the middle of the woods in a parked car with a next to complete stranger.  I had no idea what was happening.  I didn’t have a cell phone on me and I was nervous.  This just wasn’t normal for me!  I prepared myself to take defense if needed, and slowly got out of the car as well.

Brent opened the trunk of his car and pulled out two greasy Carl’s Jr. Bags with those sickening yellow smiley stars printed on.  Uhhh…Carl’s Jr. for lunch?   He handed the bags to me and pulled out a guitar, laptop, and a blanket and took off into the trees.  I followed cautiously behind and stepped lightly.  I prepared myself to run out of there if needed.  I honestly was scared! Ha….I’m overly dramatic sometimes, I suppose.  But I think you’d be scared, too!  I’ll just tell you now—nothing bad happened.  Brent was just weird.  

We stopped near the bank of a slow river and Brent laid out the blanket and took the Carl’s Jr. bags from me and dumped them across our makeshift table.  I sat down and tucked my feet under my legs Indian style.  Lunch looked…interesting.  In front of me he presented our delectable meal:  ham and cheese sandwiches (the bread bag said the bread had expired two weeks prior), a half-eaten bag of potato chips, mustard and ketchup packets from Carl’s Jr., a jar of peanut butter with the label ripped off, and an old root beer bottle filled with red Kool-Aid.  He assembled my ham and cheddar cheese sandwich for me and poured out chips for me on the blanket.  I picked up the sandwich suspiciously and nervously began to eat as he talked…and talked…and talked.  I don’t remember about what.  I just remember that he talked…A LOT.  I began to realize that things weren’t so bad and started to count down the time till we could leave.  I figured in my mind that we would eat our sandwiches, drink some Kool-Aid (maybe) and then 

leave.  But then I remembered the guitar and laptop.  What did he have planned?!

I found out soon enough!

I finished my stale breaded sandwich.  Brent offered me another and I attempted to graciously turn it down.  Without warning, he then whipped out his guitar and said to me,

“I would now like to sing to you a few songs that I’ve written.”

I suppose he heard somewhere that girls liked to be swooned on the guitar at a picnic near a river.  That certainly does seem idyllic, doesn’t it? Well…this was hardly ideal….Brent began his song and it went something like this:

It was loud and the chords were clumsy.  And the lyrics consisted of phrases about alcohol, but how Mormons don’t drink alcohol, instead they drink Kool-Aid. 

And Mormon’s can’t go a day without their Kool-Aid.

And Mormon’s LOVE Kool-Aid.  It’s like RUM.  And the chorus was this:

“And I love…my….MORMOOOOOOON RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm.  Oh YES! MORMOOOOOOOOOOON RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!!!!!!!”

Repeated…several times.

I just sat there.  That was all I could do.  I’m sure I stared…pretty horribly.  I had no words.  He just kept screaming over and over like a heavy metal rocker about how much he LOVES Mormon Rum!  Heaven help me.  I endured.

And he kept singing…and singing.  Finally after an hour, he stopped.  I was saved! But wait….I knew it wasn’t over because there was still a laptop.  And as soon as he put away the guitar, he pulled out the laptop.  

“I’ve been taking a Flash class this semester.  Wanna see what I’ve been working on?” 

“Uuuuuh. Yeah.”

And for the next hour I watched animations of stick figures blowing each other up in mutiny and turning into spaghetti noodles spraying all across the sky.  It was incredibly disturbing.  After animation number 3, I tuned it all out and all I could think about was getting out of this horrible place and spending the rest of the evening with my other date. 

Finally, he asked me if I wanted to see more and I took this as an opportunity to say, “No.  I actually have to get back now.”  He hung his head sadly and packed everything up.  We got back into his car and drove back to my apartment.  The minutes dragged on…I wanted so badly to get out!  Finally, we arrived.  He didn’t open the door. I took the opportunity to let myself out.  He jumped out of the car after me and he tried to hug me…but I wasn’t going to have any of that…so, you know what I did?!  Hahahaha…..I still laugh…I gave him a HIGH FIVE. HAHA!  Oh dear me….yes I did.  

Brent then informed me that he didn’t have to work anymore and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him to the dance that night.  I said, “NO.  I’m busy, “ and then left as quickly as I could.  I could hardly breathe when I finally reached my apartment.  I ran as fast I could to get away.  I didn’t want to give him any opportunities to catch up to me, because I totally saw that as a possibility.   I changed and dressed myself up for the dance and spent the whole evening having a great time with my date #2.  Brent was at the dance….and luckily, I had my detectors on and ready.  I successfully hid from him the entire night and danced my cares away.  

Even though the night ended nicely, my date with Brent has successfully gone down in history as my WORST DATE EVER.  Oh well.