The Prom

So I had the person on the phone now that I was quite certain did not chew gum, looked good in jeans, bowled well with some help from the scorekeeper and had a nice smile. It was time to proceed.  Back in that day there was a slight amount of nerves involved in asking a person out.  I think kids today are more free with this and they have things checked out pretty good on face book and all the other modern tools.  In other words they have a pretty good idea what is going to happen before  any questions are asked.  I asked if she did remember me from a couple of years ago.  The optimistic part of me hoped that the answer would be that she had been sitting by the phone waiting for this call, but that is not what I got.  I did however get sort of a laugh and I could detect a level of warmness and surprise.  So I asked her if she would be interested in me driving down to Detroit and taking her out.  She said she might consider the idea.  I suggested that the coming Friday might be a good time.  She said she had to go to her prom that night.  I had never been to a prom before (I do not think my school had them) so I said I would do that with her but needed to know what I should wear.  At that point the phone went silent for more than just a moment.  I soon found out that these prom arrangements had been made long before and another young man would be her escort that night. She was also booked the following weekend.  But if I wished to drive down  the weekend after that it might work.

Now I want to give a little word to all of you who are mothers of daughters who are dating age that the art of playing a little hard to get does work.   I am not sure if this was taking place here as I think the delay had legitimate reason but nevertheless when a young man hangs the phone up from a conversation like this it leaves the impression and gives him time to think that perhaps he is asking for something of great value.

I asked her what she wanted to do in a few weeks.  Perhaps some dinner and a movie.  No she said, I do not date boring men. I like Tiger baseball, they are in town that week and we are going to the game.  The way this was stated gave me some idea of who might wear the pants in this potential relationship but in this case it was OK with me because I liked baseball.  In about 3 weeks would come one of the best first dates in the history of planet earth.  Al Kaline would play right, Mickey Lolitch would pitch and we would be sitting in the left field seats.  I am going to tell you about that next time.   For now, just in case you are wondering or if you go to a Tiger game, they do not sell milkshakes at these games................ but I did solve that problem.

Stan the Man