THE BLIND DATE

I was watching the movie “Blind Date”; a very funny movie…but not as much fun as the one Rob got me into…

“Cal, it’s Rob I need to ask a special favor! It’s important so please help me out!”  I am supposed to take Pam X (last name redacted to protect the innocent) bowling tonight, but I fore got I already had another date (much hotter)…please take Pam bowling and I promise I’ll pay you back…Pam is my sister’s best friend and she’s not bad looking, not bad at all…you’ll like her …Vickie will kill me if I don’t show up.”

“Rob, I don’t do blind dates,” I replied.  Rob paid no attention and went from “explaining” to “begging”.

“Ok, ok, but you’ve got to call her and tell her I am coming!” I caved and threw caution to the winds, “What time do I have to pick her up; I vaguely knew Pam from school, so I didn’t ask for any other details’?  And so, the die was cast for the most memorable date in my young life.

That evening, with my crew cut waxed, doused with Old Spice and dressed in my favorite madras shirt, chinos with matching madras belt, I drove courtesy of my dad, to Pam’s house  on third street. I knocked at the front door and her dad, answered.  
Can I help you…?"  (I always hated talking to fathers) 
“I’m here to take Pam bowling,” I replied in my most respectful voice. Giving me that look all dads did when a boy calls for a daughter, he asked me to come in and called Pam.

As Pam came down the stairs, I thought, Wow she got a bit chunky over the summer…but of course I had never seen her outside of school with her hair in curlers and wearing a tee-shirt and cut-offs.  

“This a real surprise Cal,” she beamed.  “I’ve seen you in the halls at school but…” I cut in with my fingers crossed behind my back, “Rob knew you would enjoy going bowling with me…so…” My voice trailed off.

“Well, I’ve never been bowling before, but it sounds like fun.  Give me a minute,” she said. I guessed she wasn’t too upset about me pinch-hitting for Rob, the captain of our football team.  
We went to the small Millville Lanes (8 to be exact and were the only ones there, July wasn’t bowling season) The air conditioning was working hard and lowered the temperature to about 84.  The place reeked of cigarette smoke – most from the team of “pin boys” who were famous for their agility and teenage smoking and terminal acne.  Many had quit school to enter this hard and dangerous profession.

  I brought my own ball and shoes which I got for Christmas two years ago, but rarely used them – bowling wasn’t my game.              We spent what seemed like an hour for Pam to try every ball in the place – saying “Wow these things are really heavy!”  She finally picked a light baby blue one.  We bowled.  I was glad for two things - first that my friends couldn't see me and second, that I didn’t have money on the match as this novice bowler beat me all 3 games as she mowed down the pins like a pro.  She only made one bad toss when she almost took out a pin boy while he was setting up with an errant ball that jumped three lanes from ours! I knew I have been hustled when she said,  "Hey Cal let's do a couple more lines for a buck a game, what'ya say?"

I said I had to get home to study (my second lie of the evening) but added that we had time to stop at the Goody Shop for  ice cream sodas.  I had the soda and she had the Monster Maniac Five Flavor Goody Bonanza. Which decimated my week's allowance and this was only Friday.  Nick the owner was beside himself with joy as his own signature concoction was rarely ordered - it cost 3 bucks!  

On the Monday morning,  I cornered Rob at his locker (we were in the same homeroom).  “How was your date,” he asked with the smile of a conspirator on his face?  “Great if you like spending a week’s allowance on a bowl of ice cream and not getting to eat it,” I whined.  
Then it happened. A blinding moment that would live with me forever.  “Here comes Pam now,” Rob whispered. “Want me to set you up for an encore?”  
“Wait…What…that’s not Pam,” I countered. 

“It certainly is,” Rob said.  Pam wasn't Pam.  “You have to be kidding,” I took out the wrong Pam ?   

I realized then that my blind date was a double blind date - a “you can’t make this stuff up date.  By fate or just an unbelievable coincident I gone to the wrong address but still picked up a "Pam"!
 For the rest of the next school year I hid from the erzatz Pam when we passed in the halls…and I vowed never to go on another blind date again - until the next time... but that's another memory!