A funny memory or two

For some reason, lots of old funny memories have been floating around in my head lately. So I'm going to share a few with whoever is bored enough to read this. Tonight, you get my three favorite date memories. For the purposes of this blog, a favorite date memory is defined as a funny date memory, since no one wants to read about my romantic doorstep scenes and mushy moments, and even if they did, I wouldn't post it on the internet for all to see.

Number three took place just a few months ago. I often get (or used to get) free tickets to events at BYU, usually last minute, and this often leads to me finding a last-minute date. I have one good friend, Graham, who I invited often because I knew he'd always enjoy the cultural events. It's kind of gratifying to invite someone to a concert and see them leaning forward the whole time out of sheer enjoyment.

This event was a play, "Dial 'M' for Murder." I got the tickets two days before and struck out a few times before I decided to call Graham. He agreed to go with me so we attended the play, enjoyed it, and drove back to our apartment complex. As the instigator of the date, I was driving. We pulled into the parking lot and rounded a corner. Suddenly Graham sat up straight, stared out the window, and exclaimed, "hey! Those people are breaking in to my apartment!" There was a knot of people gathered near his balcony, busily engaged in attempting a prank on his apartment (involving his cardboard woman, Petunia. That's a story for another day, though). So it was not actually organized crime, just a prank war. Graham had me drive up close to the sidewalk and then he jumped out of the car to go confront them before I had even stopped all the way. As I pulled back around to park, I was laughing pretty hard. I have now been on a date where my date jumped out of the car before it was fully stopped, although it wasn't actually to get away from me. After I parked, I did go over and join him while he stopped the prankage, and he did walk me to my door after that, bless him. But it was pretty entertaining.

Number two took place last summer. A boy named Stephen in my ward asked me out and I was rather taken aback. I knew his family pretty well because I went to high school with his big sister- he was a few years younger than me though, so I didn't know him very well. I was kind of concerned that we wouldn't have very much to talk about, but I was pleasantly surprised in that respect. We ended up having good conversation the whole time. In fact, when he walked me to my door to end the date, the first thing he said at the doorstep was, "well, this is definitely the most intellectual date I've ever been on." as soon as I was inside and closed the door, I fell over on the floor laughing. That statement in now my favorite doorstep scene ever. I guess if anyone is looking for an intellectual date, I'm your woman.

Number one, my funniest date, is a little further back in time, about three and a half years. I was living at home during the summer and I was trying to attract the attention of a guy named Ted. The whole story is rather humorous, including the fact that both Ted and I confided in my brother that we were interested in each other but we didn't seem to communicate that to each other super well. When he finally did ask me out, he decided to do it right, and he enlisted the assistance of our mutual friend Erin to find out what my favorite flower was so he could bring me one. Erin had to find ways to ask me what my favorite flower was a few times because I kept claiming that I didn't have a favorite flower, I loved them all. Finally, I told her that if I had to choose, I'd probably select a Dutch iris. (Oddly enough, I didn't get suspicious at all when she kept asking me what my favorite flower was. Probably because I was studying botany and I just like plants). Erin carefully filed away that piece of information to tell Ted. However, somehow before she got the chance to tell him, she got a little confused and ended up telling Ted it was a Dutch lily I hankered after. Poor Ted called every florist in the valley asking if they carried Dutch lilies, and was told many times that no such thing existed. So he showed up on my doorstep with a plain lily, which I thought was pretty cool, and even better after I heard the trouble he'd gone to.

Knowing that I was a plant nerd, Ted took me to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens, which was a great idea. We strolled around the gardens for quite a while and lost track of time. We eventually saw several people gathering things up and walking towards the entrance, but no one ever said anything to us. after a while, we realized that it was pretty dark and the pathway lights were turned off and we hadn't seen another person for a while. Then we began to think maybe the gardens were closed. Our suspicions were confirmed when we walked back to the building that housed the entrance and it was dark and locked up. Yep, we managed to get ourselves locked in to the gardens for the night. We found that pretty entertaining. After some exploring, we found a piece of the gardens that had terraces instead of a fence where we could climb down and get back tot he car. But if we hadn't found that area, we just might have had to have spent the night in the garden. Getting locked in the garden for the night is my favorite date memory ever.