Blowing up
balloons was never my favorite thing to do and yet I still opted to go with the
idea. I went to the dollar store to buy some cheap, colorful balloons.The idea
was to type up each letter of my name individually, cut them out after printing
them off and then rolling them up and sticking them inside each individual
balloon. I sat on the chair in my living room. One balloon. Two balloons. Cheek
pain. I hated this feeling. I immediately began seeking help from my family
members as they passed me sitting on the chair. First my sister, she said no.
Then I asked my dad. He didn’t answer as he walked out of the house. I decided
to blow up another one. Three balloons. I massaged my cheeks and wasn’t sure
how I was supposed to blow up all 150 balloons by myself. There had to be an
easier way to do this. Right as I was about to give up, my dad waltzed in the
house with a tire pump. Brilliant. This was going to be so much better! He
showed me the easiest way to do it and I started blowing up balloons ten times
quicker than before. The process began to go more smoothly as I stuck the
rolled up pieces of paper in the balloons and blew them up one at a time. Not
only did I put individual letters in the balloons, but I also took the time to
write a few notes to him, just to give him a bit of encouragement while he
figured out who was giving him an invitation. I also included a few blank
pieces of paper in some balloons just to throw him off. I couldn’t make it too
easy for him. As soon as I was done blowing them all up, I placed them in
garbage bags. I called up my friend, Andrew, to help me out by being my
get-away driver. 
He came to pick me up and he popped his trunk so I could place the balloons inside. I hurried to climb inside the warm car to avoid the cold winter chill in the air. We drove over to Spencer’s house. The first thing I noticed was that there weren’t any lights on in the house. I immediately let my guard down. I wasn’t careful about keeping my voice down. Andrew shushed me. He looked through their window next to the door and saw the family in the distant room watching a movie. I quickly placed the two bags full of balloons on the front porch in front of his door along with the note I had written in order to indicate who it was for and the dance that I was asking him to. I knocked loudly. I booked it to the car, closed the passenger door after climbing in and we were off. Easily enough we had gotten away without being caught. It was a successful escape.
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| Andrew and I after the get away! I know we're the best looking partners in crime that ever existed! |
I awkwardly avoided Spencer until he responded to my invitation. The next week of school I was terrified to even make eye contact with him. I had thoughtfully picked out who I was going to ask and now that I had, I pondered the thought of him actually rejecting my invitation. The only thing that comforted me was that I had chosen to ask him because I knew that we would have an excellent time. He was one of those kids that everyone loved because he was kind and happy all the time. We were destined to go to this dance together and to have a great time. I was on the committee to help plan this dance and the only thing that I was missing was a date. I convinced myself that I would get a positive answer; it was just a matter of playing the waiting game.
Choir was the only class that I had with Spencer that year. I sat in class a week later and waited for us to start. The choir director sent the girls to the practice rooms to learn a certain part of a song while he helped the boys practice their part in the choir room. When us girls felt comfortable with the part, we piled back into the room and took our seats. The only problem was that there was something on my seat that wasn’t there before we left the room. Balloons. Four on each corner of the chair with one placed in the middle that had been written on. What was written there was the answer I had anxiously waited for. Of course I had to be careful not to seem embarrassingly excited. My best friend, who sat next to me, smiled from ear to ear and shared my excitement with me. I had a date to the dance and I couldn’t have been more excited.
The day of the dance quickly approached. I had a dress, I had made sure that Spencer’s tie would match perfectly, and I was prepared to have the best time of my life. The group that we were in was bound to make the whole entire day eventful. Unfortunately, our plans to go bowling during the day fell through, so instead we went to lunch and played “Catch Phrase”. There were complaints from some of the girls in our group because of the simplicity of our activity. I didn’t say anything and just enjoyed myself. I had fun and it seemed as though Spencer was as well. That’s all that really mattered. Besides, it didn’t matter what we did; it was our attitude towards it that determined whether we had a good time or not. We personally had to decide whether we were going to have a good time or not. Thank goodness I had the perfect date to have the best time with no matter what we did.
When the day portion of our date was over, I took Spencer home for him to get ready. I remember specifically that we talked about how long it takes girls to get ready for dances and how it only takes the guys a short amount of time. We laughed about silly situations like that the entire time. I really did not want this date to end. It was magnificent. After I took him home, I headed to my house in order to get myself ready. I took a shower and twisted my hair back in an elegant up do, put on my dress as well as my flat shoes, grabbed my coat and keys and headed out the door to go pick up all of the people that would be riding with me in my car.
Spencer was the last person that we picked up before we headed over to meet with the rest of our group to take pictures outside and then eat dinner. I pulled up into the driveway of his house, got out of my car and walked up to the door with his boutonniere in hand. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. I waited for someone to answer, but no one came. I figured that I had knocked too softly and that I needed to try again, but instead of knocking I chose to ring the doorbell knowing that for certain someone inside the house would have heard it. There was still no answer. I waited for a couple minutes trying to decide what to do. I went back to the car to ask the other couple what I should do. They were surprised that I had been standing on the porch for the past five minutes because they couldn’t see the front door from where I had parked the car. One of my passengers offered to call the house, but I didn’t want to seem impatient in case someone was inside still. I finally just decided that I would try and knock one more time.
What if he really wasn’t home? I thought that he was the perfect guy to take on a date and was excited to get to know him more. The last thing I thought would happen would be being stood up by this kid who was supposedly perfect. I thought the day date had gone well, but maybe it hadn’t. What could possibly be going on?
On my way back up to the door to try one more time, I looked up to see a suburban speeding down the road. I immediately let out a sigh of relief as I recognized Spencer’s mom in the front passenger seat. Before the car came to a complete stop in front of the house, Spencer jumped out of the car in a James Bond type fashion and ran up to the garage. He explained while he opened up the door that his family had been up at the church cleaning when they lost track of time. I honestly found it to be hilarious. I wasn’t upset at all. His mom welcomed me into their home, complimented my outfit and invited me to take a seat. I laughed as I heard Spencer running around upstairs getting ready. He ran downstairs two minutes later, already in his suit, rushing to find his shoes. He put them on in record time and came in the front room with his hair wet. He bent over to run his fingers quickly through his hair and in record time of approximately 15 seconds it was done and he was ready to go. It’s a good thing it doesn’t take guys very long to get ready. We did the usual routine of the flower exchange and pictures were taken by his wonderful mother. We went on our way and were laughing about it the entire time. I could have easily taken his lack of punctuality offensively. It could have even gone as far as to ruining the whole night, but instead I chose to just laugh with him and make jokes about it. Luckily it made the night more memorable. Besides, we were going to have a spectacular time.
[And we did. Don't you worry!]
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| Look to the far right. Spencer's face is my favorite :) |
