First Date

This weekend SOB and I are going to celebrate the 13th anniversary of our first date. We can't actually remember the exact date, but sometime during the third year we were together we settled on the 16th of March. It's funny because I remember so much about that day, but I can't remember the exact date. I remember it was a Wednesday, so according to this March 1996 calendar it was either the 13th or the 20th. The 16th splits the difference, so that works for me.

I was a junior in high school at the time, and SOB was a big, bad senior. And when I say bad I mean that. Despite being ranked second in his class, he almost didn't graduate because of all of the tardies and missed days he racked up that year. He forged his parents' signatures and pretty much never came to school unless he had a test. Most of his teachers knew about his bad habits, but because of his charm and high GPA, he was given a lot of leeway. 

We actually skipped school together on our first date. I was kind of a newbie at the whole school skipping thing, so he had to give me explicit instructions so that I didn't get caught. I snuck out through the exit down by the art room and the shop room, where he waited for me in his 1978 sky blue dodge aspen station wagon. We drove into Pittsburgh, up to Oakland where the University of Pittsburgh is located, and decided what we were going to do over coffee at the now defunct Bee Hive cafe. It was only 8:30 in the morning, so not much else was open. 

At 10am, we made our way into the Carnegie Museum of Natural History where I remember being totally entranced in the hall of minerals and gems. We took in some of the dinosaur bones and then headed out for lunch. After we ate we went to see The Birdcage. Because we were supposed to be at academic team practice after school, he couldn't take me home too early so we went to a ginormous state park and played at the playground. I had never jumped off of the swings before, and decided that today was going to be the day. Of course I fell in the mud and had to make up an elaborate story explaining how I got so muddy at school. The story which involved a three foot strip of earth that divided the school's parking lot from the main drive, and I have no idea why anyone on earth believed me, but they did. He drove me home, and not even two hours later he was on my front porch again. That night we had our first kiss. 

(I'm not sure if we even confessed to these misdeeds, so if my mother is reading this she might be surprised. But they can't be mad at me now. I married the guy and had/am having his kids, so grand kids should make up for the lying we did 13 years ago, right?)

Tomorrow we're heading our for an afternoon flick and a late lunch. I'm hoping that we'll end the day with a kiss, just as sweet and warm as the first.