Not Pigs in Space

Okay, if Sarge can do it, I can too. Hang a pair of posts on a single day, that is. As if this were a contest or something.

No, he has a very cool post over at his place which caused my not-so-reliable Wayback Machine to lurch into a reasonable simulation of activity.

It's something of a snow day here, and I should be working on taxes, but the Wayback Machine is really chugging along.

The topic Sarge posted on was along the lines of the first date, first hand-holding, etc.

The girl that comes to mind wasn't the first date. I'd had quite a few dates. As something of an aside, I could never figure out how so many of my peers struggled to find the courage to ask a girl out. Just ask! If she says yes, great. If she says no, so what?

The girl that comes to mind wasn't the first I held hands with. That was way back in like fourth grade.

Wasn't even the first kiss. That happened in the local movie theater when an eighth grade girl mauled the hell out of my seventh grade carcass. Frightened me badly. But not that badly.

No, the girl that comes to mind was named Corina. We met at the local Pizza Hut where I had a part-time gig as a cook, and she as a waitress. Those were dark and politically incorrect times. Somehow (hormones are the most likely culprit) we hit it off. And I promptly and for the first time experienced the whole "asking out cowardice" thing.

Which was probably the first time I noticed a significant difference between reality and my certainty about how reality works.

Eventually I asked her out, and it was fine. Actually, considerably better than fine.

One summer night after work, sometime between midnight and gettin'-in-serious-trouble-o:clock, as we leaned against my trusty '69 Torino in the Hut parking lot, we kissed. A very sweet, very chaste kiss. A truck drove by and blew his air horn in approval. As I look back on that event I have to chuckle. A couple of tired, oregano scented teenagers kissing in a parking lot. SMH. But it's a good, warm, wholesome memory.

Eventually she ran me off, and with good reason. Few 17 year old boys are civilized, and I wasn't among that small cohort. I was headed for the navy, and she was...

I have no idea. I was a tad self-centered in those days.

I've thought about searching for her down the interweb trail, but I'll leave it alone. She'll be forever 16 in my mind, and like Schrodinger's Cat, her life will exist in an indeterminate state so long as I don't look. I'd hate to open the box and force an outcome.

Hmmm. Getting pretty deep around here.