Thirty Days: Day 10

a song that takes you back

It was a Friday in June. The year was 1998. I had spent the day in the pool with Haley. When we were done I was trying to put the ladder back up and it ended up crashing into my head, leaving a big gash. Because of this little incident Heather, Holly and I decided to have a low key evening. The plan was to stay in pajama pants and grab some food at Taco Bell, then go back to Heather's.

Many time I have talked about the best laid plans, however this evening that didn't go how we expected turned out to be one of the most memorable nights ever.

We finished our dinner and headed out to the parking lot. There was a guy at a white mustang convertible. I made the comment "if he is leaving a rose on his girlfriend's car I'm going to be mad." Upon further inspection of this situation it turns out that this guy wasn't putting a flower on his girlfriend's car, nope he was trying to break into it. He looks up at us, realizing that we are watching him, and asks if we have a coat hanger. He explained that he had locked his keys in his car (yes the top was up). Being me, I had one of everything in my car and dug out a wire hanger for him. He introduced himself at the back of my car, though I was a little jaded about guys and didn't bother to remember his name.

The girls and I went inside to the bathroom at which point we mentioned that this guy was hot and that I didn't have a clue what his name was. We headed back out to the car, where the mystery guy still hadn't been able to get into his car. Being the stupid 16 year olds that we were we invited him to go riding around with us. (Don't judge, he was hot!) We all introduced ourselves and our new friend's name was Cliff. We end up meeting up with some "friends" and I explained to him that when we got out of the car he would need to flirt with one of us because one of these girls would maul him otherwise. Well he picked one of us: me. (Not that I was complaining) One of our other friends hopped in the car with us and Cliff hopped in the front seat of my car and made the girls sit in the back. He and I ended up chatting. He had just graduated high school and was going to OU in the fall. He was from a smaller town to the east of Ardmore, hence us having never met him.

We make it back to Taco Bell and somehow managed to get his car unlocked. We then we riding around in the convertible. Well that was just fun. Not our normal Friday night.

Here's where the song comes into play. There is a big bump south of the old Blockbuster in Ardmore. Song 2 was on the radio and as we hit this bump the song blared "woo-hoo." All in all it was a pretty awesome night. Then it got better.

We made it back to Taco Bell, because it was almost curfew time, and Cliff pulled up on the driver's side of my car. The girls got out and headed to the passenger's side (2 door GMC Jimmy :)). As I was getting out of the car I leaned over the door to chat for a few more minutes, and to convince him to come to our car wash the next day. Before I was about to get in my car he looked at me and said he needed to tell me something, but he didn't want me to get mad about it. I was thinking what on earth could he tell me that would make me mad, we'd only met him a few ours before. I said okay and then he said "you have to pinky promise." Really? After probably rolling my eyes I put my pinky out, which he grabbed with his and pulled me down and kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me. Yeah it was awesome. Even at almost 30 that has to be one of, if not the best first kiss ever.

In the meantime the girls were on the other side of the car, Heather and Kristen were tired and ready to go and not paying the slightest bit of attention to what was going on. Holly, on the other hand, was watching through the car window and kind of hit Heather and said, are they kissing. Heather was ignoring her, so Holly hit harder and said "they're kissing!" I got in the car and had to explain myself, not that there was much to explain, he was hot, after all.

The next day, at the very end of the car wash he showed up and he, Heather, Holly and I ended up going to the lake. We proceeded to make out for the afternoon, in the water, on the towel, yeah it was a good day. He told me I had pretty eyes, probably the first time I'd heard that (though not the last). I gave him my number, but didn't hear from him...



Until the following year when I found his email address on OU's website, was mad at an ex, and asked him to Prom. There is a pretty good story about that too, but that's for another day, though I will leave you with a picture from Prom.