A lot of you have asked which character is me, which my wife has pointed out as "Chris." I will agree that Chris has my personality, but not entirely. He's also a mixture of my Enclave roommates (you know who you are), except Radiohead, who deserves his own blog post. But, yes, Chris is mostly me in this fictional blast from the past.
Terrence is the "Michael Scott" of the story, not a very realistic character, although he has traits of a lot of the more socially inept Zoobies I met at BYU.
GL Steve is a mixture of Tyler "Five-head" and Spencer. I won't list last names as they probably Google themselves, but if you know them, you already know that.
P Steve is like Steve from the BYU 73rd ward, whose last name escapes me. Anyway, everybody loved Steve, but all the girls saw him as "just a friend". I also see him as Landry from Friday Night Lights.
The Franks are too vague to be anybody.
The King is extremely fictional. But he's like that guy in the ward who's probably way too old to be there, but still, he knows everything about dating even though he's not married.
Anita is a mixture of a couple of girls named Amy from the Enclave.
Annie is a mixture of a bunch of girls I knew at BYU.
Also, Heidi, Anita is NOTHING like Cardboard Lindsey, who also deserves her own blog post. Cardboard has yet to make an appearance in any form, but what we'd be looking for is a completely boring but somewhat pretty girl, intent on staying in Provo until betrothal, who also refuses to be dumped. Although there's a little bit of that in Anita in this episode, not to give anything away.
Chapter 6 (has the links to Chapters 1-5)
Okay, let's get to the story. I hope you have the next 30 minutes free...
Chapter 7
The Set-up
Tuesday, September 30, 2003The Set-up
7:49 PM
It'd been a few days since Annie dumped Terrence, and he was still moping around the apartment, eating so many Cheetos there wasn't a doorknob in the place that didn't taste like cheese flavoring. My clothes even had an orange glow to them. It was pathetic, disgusting, and, worst of all, gaseous. We'd all tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen to anybody not named "Annie". We even knocked on the King's door, but all we heard was the rustling of papers and the shuffling of feet.
Me and Personality Steve had had enough. We decided to find T a dream girl so we could all resume BAU (Business As Usual), so we headed down to the library to see what Periodicals had to offer. It was a Thursday night, usually the busiest time at Periodicals, and every table was full of people pretending to study.
Now, I will say this, the Periodicals is not the Meat Market everybody claims it is. It's more like the Meat Show. Nobody ever buys anything, they just like to see what's available. Sure, you'll see the occasional pick-up or exchange of numbers, but for the most part, nothing's going on. I mean, who wants to pick up on somebody in a silent room when everybody within 20 feet can hear your dumb lines? It's a high-risk, low-reward venture.
However, we were desperate, and we didn't know where else to look. We walked straight in, split up, did a lap, and reconvened to discuss what we saw.
"I saw a portly one over by the window. Seemed desperate enough."
"Hmmm, I did notice her, but did you see the flock of dorks in the middle there? They seem right up T's alley. I like our chances at that table."
We agreed, and walked right on over. It's so much easier to have confidence when you're hitting on a girl for somebody else. It also helps if you have a much higher rating than the girl. These girls were 3's, 4's, and 5's, and we figured T was right in that range. There were 4 of them, and they looked like sisters. All of them had their hair pulled up, baggy sweaters, and tapered jeans. They looked like Terrence in girl form.
"Hey," said Steve in a whisper, as all heads within 10 yards lifted from their books to see what all the ado was about. The girls looked at him, curious as to what this red-headed dude with a t-shirt that read "I can't, I'm Mormon" wanted.
"What are you lovely ladies studying tonight?" They welcomed his attention, as I stood behind Steve, practically hiding. I didn't want them to be intimidated by my breathtakingly good looks.
"Oh, just some O-Chem," the alpha dork responded. She was also the tallest, with red-rimmed glasses with a red butterfly barrette to match. The butterfly seemed to scream "Terrence."
"Organizational Chemistry, eh? That happens to be my major," smiled Steve.
"Sure it is," Alpha responded, "since you don't even know what O-Chem stands for."
Steve responded, undaunted, "Of course I do. It stands for Science." They all giggled. "But seriously, ladies, why aren't you on dates tonight? Maybe a group date over in the lab with some handsome RM's?" They giggled again.
The mousy one in the corner replied with a bashful smile, "All the guys around here can't match wits with us."
"That may be true, ladies, but you may have to give some of us a chance to learn from you." They giggled again. If Steve kept up this kind of charm, he would have 4 marriage proposals before the hour was up. And it was 7:58. "But seriously, ladies, I am here on a mission. My roommate sent me. He needs a date for this weekend, and I told him I would set him up. Are any of you opposed to a blind date?"
None of them responded. "Anyone?" Still nothing. "Okay, let me tell you about my roommate. His name is Terrence, he's an RM, from somewhere in the great state of Idaho. He just got dumped by a girl, and he needs a nice girl to show him a good time. What do you say?"
Steve continued to be met with silence. They all just kind of looked at each other, completely surprised at the situation. "Okay, I'll sweeten the deal," negotiated Steve. "It will be a double-date, and one of you lucky ladies can come with me."
Indeed, this sparked their interest. They whispered among themselves and came to a decision. Alpha spoke for the team. "Which one would you like to go with, Steve?" she asked, batting her eyes and showing off her screaming butterfly barrette.
"Oh, you can't make me decide. You're all equally...sweet." Steve paused. "How about this? We'll just meet here at this table on Saturday at 7, and we'll be lucky to go with whoever shows up. That way, if you're not interested in a pity date for my friend and me, you just don't show up. How's that?"
Alpha seemed disappointed that Steve didn't pick her, but pleased enough that she would still probably end up with him anyway, being the ring leader and all. "Okay, that sounds good. We'll surprise you."
We walked away briskly. Steve had a grin on his face. "I can't BELIEVE that worked!"
"You sure are smooth, Steve. So smooth I can't tell where you end and where you begin."
Saturday, October 4
6:38 PM
The hard part wasn't getting a girl to go on a blind date with Terrence, it was getting Terrence to leave the apartment. He hadn't even taken a shower this week, how were we going to get him to go on a date? We knew that our powers were not enough to get him back on track. We needed The King. Every 15 minutes, we'd go and knock on his door, hoping he would come out. We knew The King worked on his own terms, and would emerge when he saw fit. Unfortunately, we got nowhere and had no more options but to ask Terrence to get it together. As his roommate, I was the first choice, so I went into our room. I hadn't even been in there since Wednesday, the stench of BO and Cheeto's were an almost toxic mix. I'd been sleeping on the couch and borrowing the Frank's clothes.
I opened the door and an orange dust cloud escaped immediately. The orange fog was so thick, I felt like I was Indiana Jones wading through a dense, smoky jungle of socks, Cheeto bags, and tissues. Terrence lay on his bed, face down with his nose in the crack between the wall and the bed.
"Terrence? What are you doing?" I had a shirt over my mouth and nose to protect me from the fumes.
"Leave me alone," came the muffled voice from the bed.
"Listen, Terrence, you have to get out of bed and take a shower or something. You can't feel sorry for yourself forever."
No response.
"Hey, we even got a date for you tonight with a beautiful sister in Zion."
Another muffled response: "I know, 7 pm. Meeting at the library."
This baffled me. How did he know? Only P Steve and I knew about it, and I know Steve didn't say anything to him yet. "So, are you going?"
"Yeah."
I paused while I tried to process this. Terrence, who hadn't left the apartment or showered in a week, somehow knew that we set him up with a girl at 7pm tonight. Not only that, he was willing to go! "How do you know about this?"
"The King had a talk with me."
The King? We were trying to get him to talk to T about this all week, but we never even saw him! Evidently, The King moves in mysterious ways. The whole situation baffled me, but it got results. Terrence ended up showering, putting on fresh clothes, and dressing the part. He looked danged spiffy, if you ask me. In fact, he made P Steve look like a total chump. Steve was fine with that.
They took off together shortly before 7, leaving me alone. Now, I must confess that I was feeling pretty irked about the Anita situation. Before we went out, I had no expectations, but then the date went so well, I thought we had a "connection" and we had some sort of a future. Maybe not a full-on relationship future, but at least a couple more dates. So I got my hopes up. However, she had ignored me at Ward Prayer, and I was back to ground zero. Unfortunately, I now had some emotional investment in her, and it wasn't as easy to put her out of my mind. I also made the cardinal mistake of not expanding my teaching pool, so I had no prospects for a Saturday Night date, plus P Steve was already taken, and he was my go-to double dater. So there I was, alone on a Saturday night, and that is about the lowest status symbol in college.
About an hour or two of feeling sorry for myself passed while I was watching some worthless college football game when the doorbell rang. It was Anita, of all people.
"Yes?"
"Hey, I just came by to say hello."
"Steve's not here."
"I wanted to talk to you, doofus."
"Okay, I guess." I opened the door and watched her walk in and plop herself down on my seat. "That's my seat," I said dryly.
"No wonder it's so comfortable! I'm sure this one right next to it is equally comf," she said with a smile, patting the middle cushion.
I sat down opposite her on the love seat, ignoring her instructions.
"Listen, Chris," she began with a serious tone, "I just want to say I'm sorry for ignoring you the other day. I was in a conversation with a guy who knew my best friend from back home, so I was completely engrossed in the conversation."
"It's not a big deal, I barely even remember that night," I lied.
"Well, I just wanted to remind you that I think you're a great guy and I'm wondering when we're going to go out again."
This was unexpected and almost unwelcome--I was enjoying hating her! What am I supposed to do with this? First, she's a jerk. Then she's nice. Then she's a jerk again. Now she's back to being nice! I didn't know if I wanted to play that game. You know what? I'm going to reject her!
"Sorry, that ship has sailed." I couldn't believe the words came out of my mouth, and now I just waited for it to sink in and become real to her. It was only a matter of time before she plopped dead and heart-broken on the floor.
"But seriously, when are we going out?" she said, stone-faced.
Was she not listening? Did I not make it clear enough for her? I'll try again: "I don't know if I want to go out with you if you're just going to ignore me the next day again."
This was obviously new to her. Someone had the gall to not cave to her! But that didn't deter her: "Well, how about if I pay? Would that make you feel better about it? I don't want to let one silly misunderstanding get you down."
Actually, that WOULD make me feel better about it, cause now I don't think she's over here campaigning for more free dinner. It only took her one line to suck me back in again! "Only if we go to IHOP again," I replied, caving.
So that was that. I was going out with Anita, again, and I knew my feelings for her were only going to get stronger and there wasn't anything I felt I could do about it. She stayed at my place for a couple more hours and we had a great conversation. I knew the whole time that she was probably just bored and her date must have fallen through, because there was no way she was not booked on a Saturday night. But I was happy and starting to be smitten. Again.
She left at 11 pm. Terrence and P Steve were still at-large, and I had nobody to discuss this recent development with. So I went on a walk and found myself at Annie's door, hoping to get answers from Anita's visiting teacher.
She answered the door in pink unicorn-patterned pajamas. "Yes? Over here for a booty call?"
"I'm sorry, did I interrupt your unicorn-fantasy-themed slumber party? Have you given each other make overs yet?" She smiled and let me in.
"Are you taking notes? This is called, 'Inviting Someone In'."
"You're a natural. Please show me your ways."
"Okay, that's enough nonsense. Why are you here? I know you need something."
"I need a friend, Annie. Did you ever think of that?"
"I thought you were plenty popular, beating down the ladies with an aluminum bat."
"I'm not as popular as one might think. In fact, I need your advice with some lady issues that you could help me with."
She smiled. "I KNEW you needed something. Speak on."
"Okay, so you're Anita's visiting teacher, right?" Annie winced, and I could tell she did NOT want to discuss Anita for probably the umpteenth time. "Nevermind."
"No, I'm interested. It's just that every boy in this ward somehow thinks I'm the Anita Expert."
This reminded me that Anita was the HGW, and I had no business pursuing her. But I couldn't help myself, I needed to dissect and over analyze the situation. "Well, I took her out last week, as you know." Annie nodded. "And then at Ward Prayer she totally shunned me whilst she was talking to this other dude. So then I thought it was over, and told myself to let it go, which I did. GL Steve took her out last night-"
"GL Steve?"
"Yeah, I have 2 roommates named Steve. One is impossibly good-looking, so we call him Good-Looking Steve. GL Steve for short."
"Oh, well I know a GL Steve, but he's just a really good accountant," she joked. I didn't get it until later, when P Steve explained that GL is "General Ledger" in bean counter speak.
"Really? What a coincidence! Anyway, GL Steve took her out last night, but I didn't hear how that went, as he's been MIA most of today. Well, I was just chilling at home tonight-"
"No dates? You? Were you sick or something?"
"You know, it may seem like I get all sorts of ladies because I'm charming, handsome, and funny, but most girls are intimidated by that, so they keep their distance."
"Or because you stink."
"Well, YOU STINK!" We both smiled and almost had a moment. I remembered why I liked Annie before Terrence messed up that whole thing. "Anyway, Anita came over around 9ish, and she wanted to give it another try. I was like, 'No way, sister, not if you were the last woman on earth!'"
Annie wasn't buying that. "What'd you really say?"
"Sure, what time?"
"You men all just cave in when a pretty face bats her eyes. 'Whatever you say, dear!' Get a spine, man!"
"Hey, now." That's all I had for a comeback. Also, I just wanted to say "Hey, now."
"So what do you need to analyze? It seems fairly evident that she wants a little taste of the myth they call 'Chris'."
"Yes, it does seem fairly evident. That's the problem! Why's she so hot and cold? She even offered to pay for this date, so I don't think she just wants free dinner."
"Maybe her date with GL Steve went so poorly, it made her appreciate you that much more."
"That is a very real possibility. GL Steve is not for everybody. He's more for just looking."
"That he is. That man is the tastiest of eye candy."
I rolled my eyes. "That's enough of THAT. You've got some drool on your chin. What about you? Any new prospects? Or are you going back to Terrence?" I half-jokingly suggested.
"Not funny. Terrence is a great guy. Not for me, though. I don't really get men like you get women. I just have to sit here and look pretty and hope somebody takes pity on poor, old me."
"It's true, you are getting pretty old. 21? Maybe 22? That's like 50 in Provo years. Foot in the grave!" She wasn't amused. "Look, most of the guys in the ward discuss you, so it's only a matter of time before you're back in the game. The real mistake you made was holding T's hand in church."
"I couldn't help it! He had a death-grip. No getting out of that bear-trap."
I stayed at Annie's house until midnight with relationship banter, when one of her more righteous roommates reminded me of the time, and I hoofed it back home, but not before taking a detour past Anita's apartment, hoping she would be looking longingly out the window, dreaming of me. No such luck. Didn't matter, though, I had at least one more chance with Anita!
TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR A SECOND DATE, AND WHAT HAPPENED WITH T AND P STEVE? LOTS OF CLIFFHANGERS HERE...
