We left off our roller coaster story with me realizing that I had left my mother's class ring on Derek's key chain. Yes, the ring that had earned me many threats as to what cruel and unusual punishments I would receive if I lost that ring.
My parents didn't give out normal punishments. Well, sure, they would ground me from going to dances or seeing my friends, but you have to give them props for some of their more ingenious punishments. I never had a cell phone in high school, so that punishment option was not available. My least favorite punishment of theirs was grounding me from hair supplies and make up. Now THAT is completely earth-shattering to a teenage girl. I suppose I should actually thank them for this, I learned how to handle my hair naturally, and how to use make up to enhance my beauty, not paint it on. (So this is me, begrudgingly, thanking you for grounding me from beauty products.)
Another creative punishment: pitting my brother Brigham and me against each other in a race to pick up the most dog poop. Winner didn't have to mow the lawn. However, my brother and I are very competitive with each other, and we hated mowing the lawn more than we hated dog poop. We got in a fight over border rights, and who had more dog poop on their side (lucky!) which ended with my brother chucking a handful of re-hydrated (yes, that's right, re-hydrated) dog poop at the back of my head. For a kid later diagnosed with no depth perception, his aim was true that day.
Now that you see an example of the horrors my mother could inflict on me when I was a kid, you can understand why I would be so panicked at the thought of what she might do to me now that I was an ADULT, right? Needless to say, I feared for my life.
I was panicking and on the verge of tears at the thought of some short obnoxious guy who could probably go years without noticing a tiny gold ring on his key chain, and who I might never see again since our previous encounters had been a story I planned on laughing about with my future daughters when sharing dating horror stories. The biggest factor of all was our age difference, I was still 17 and a minor. That's a pretty big deterrent for a 24 year old.
I made 2 calls that night to Derek's phone. I say phone, because to this day, Derek seems to have an aversion to answering when people call him, so it was more like I was just calling his phone. I left voice mails.
"Hi Derek. Its Victoria. Um I think I left my ring on your key chain. I really need it back, so, please call me when you get this."
"Hi Derek, its Victoria again. I just wanted to make sure you got my message earlier? I really really need that ring back. Ok. Just call me whenever as soon as you get this."
Sunday morning dawned brisk and sunny and still no answer from Derek. My roommates talked me into waiting to call until after 4. I was anxious and jittery the whole day until 4 o'clock rolled around. And when that glorious number was finally glowing on the digital reading of our microwave, I lunged for my phone. No answer. So I called again. Still no answer. So I called a few more times.
"Hey Derek, its Victoria. You have my ring...on your key chain. I was hoping to hear back from you by now. Look you don't even have to bring it to me, I just really have to have it back now."
"Derek, its me again. Look I know you must think I'm crazy now because of how many times Ive called you, but that's fine you can think that I just really need you to call me back so I can get my ring!"
At this point I had convinced myself that he was avoiding my calls. Yeah ok, that was understandable. I was calling him way too much.
BUT DANG IT, I NEEDED THAT RING!!! (Lots of girls up here at BYU-I have that as their mantra)
My next move was very plain to see. I enlisted the help of my roommates. I had T, text him for me. I pestered her every 15 seconds, "Has he answered? Did he reply? Did he get it? Did you send it? Can you send it again? No you don't understand, my mom will KILL me!"
4:30. So much time to kill. I could find dinner, meet the other girls in the complex, review my schedule and map of campus. Nope. Better call Derek. Clearly he wasn't getting my calls or was ignoring me. If I call enough he HAS to answer right?
When the texting wasn't getting any results either, I asked Alice (you remember, the boy crazy roommate?) who had started dating the guy who lived in the same small complex as Derek, to knock on his door and see if she could just get him to give the ring to her. However, once she got there, she couldn't remember which place was his.
Although Derek was put off by my young age, he still saw me as this:
In the 14 messages I left him after our rock climbing...err...experience...he stopped seeing me as that cute girl, and started seeing me more like this:
About 6:15 my phone finally rang, and my roommates all watched as I tore through the apartment to get to my phone.
"Hello?" I said, a little breathless.
"Hey it's Derek. I guess I have your ring."
"Yeah, sorry you must think I am a complete and total nut job. That's ok, I was pretty crazy. I just need my ring back though. I can come get it."
"Yeah, I'll bring it to you. I'm already on my way."
That wonderful man. Even after I went completely psycho on him over a ring (although that's not too unheard of is it? har har I'm soooo hilarious) he still was gallant enough to bring it to me himself. That gave him some MAJOR points in my book, but by now there was no way he would ever want to be around me anymore. Who could blame him?? I even surprised myself with how crazy I went!
He came to my apartment, gave me my ring, and then somehow Alice had wormed her way into our conversation and pounced on him. I felt like a squeaky third wheel in that little conflirtsation, like I couldnt leave becasue I had nothing else believable to do, and he was technically my "guest" so I should be a good hostess.Even though I felt like I was completely off his dating grid now, we still managed to have a good conversation, and agreed to add each other on Skype, including Alice.
When Derek left that night I felt embarrassed, and wished I wouldn't have lost my head about that stupid ring, because it turns out, Derek was really nice. And I was getting used to his height. I didn't forget that he can be SO annoying when he tries too hard to get peoples attention, but I was starting to see the rest of who Derek was, and I really liked that person. Too bad Alice had already sunk her claws into him.
Before I went to bed I was messaging one of my really good guy friends from back home via Skype.I explained how embarrased I was by my actions, and he made fun of me till I started not to feel so sick about it. Then I got a notification that Derek had accepted my contact request. I looked at his profile picture. It was him holding another kitten, and I had to snort as I remembered what a tool he could be.
As I said goodbye to my friend, I got a notification of another message.
Derek: Hey.
I looked at it for a while. Wondering if I really wanted to get to know him better. I had so many apologies that I knew would just make me seem even crazier, so many explanations that would only validate any negative opinions about me. I stared at the screen a little while longer before replying with the safest and most archaic of all responses.
Victoria: Hey.
Derek: What are you doing?
The safe and absolutely LAME responses went back and forth a little before we finally started a real conversation.
Victoria: Have you ever been to Sammy's?
Derek: Never heard of it. What is it?
Victoria: WHAT? You've never been to Sammy's?! It's this great little place, they have super yummy pie shakes, and good music. I'll have to show you sometime.
Derek: Ok, I'm not doing anything tomorrow.
Victoria: Ok, I guess I will call you tomorrow? Well I really need to go to bed now.
Derek: Yeah sounds good :) Goodnight
And without realizing it, I had set up our second date.
Story of our Sammy's date coming soon! I would love to get some feedback from you guys about my stories!
***I think it is important that everyone knows that I LOVE my parents, and their punishments were in no way harmful to me! My memories are greatly exaggerated than reality thanks to them happening to me as a dramatic teen!
Best line, hands down:
ReplyDelete"BUT DANG IT, I NEEDED THAT RING!!! (Lots of girls up here at BYU-I have that as their mantra)"
And I literally LOL'd at that second picture with the obsessive eyeballs.
Cousin Deb ;)