Love at 2nd Sight

Boom-chika-boom! Everybody is dancing! Raising the Roof as some would put it. This is Homecoming. Few events can rival it. Falling in love, or something like that, would be up there on the �good things to happen to you’ list. What if both were to happen in one night? That would be an event bigger than the Great Wall of China. Almost as big as Chuck Norris. It somehow happened to me. Little explanation needs to be given about this day. I get dressed up, go to dinner, and take some pictures. But, that is what is so special. It is what dreams are made of.

It was Homecoming this year that changed my life so much. Time to set the scene. A friend of mine, Shannon, asked me to it. Her boyfriend dumped her some time before. And I apparently was the backup. Simple date acquisition. I am going to choir and then BOOM! She hits me with it! It was the �attempt to not sound nervous and you horribly fail when you ask somebody to homecoming’ question. I quickly said yes. Having trouble with some of my past relationships, and not dating in some time, decided to give it another run. This is not what our tale plays upon. Now to the Day of Homecoming.

The Previous day our team had won. And after lifting for football, I made my way home to prepare for the big event. Suit; check. Shower; check. Plans for asking the girl to another date; no. Seems I have missed something… I like this girl. I like her a lot. This creates its own problem. To ask, or not to ask? That is the Question. So many things went through my head when I asked myself this question. She had recently been dumped. If I ask her out now, she might think of me as a rebound and dump me later because she is not over her old relationship fully (Oh, wait… This happened!). What if she thinks of us as just friends? She did seem to stand off from me a bit the weekend before. What will I do if she says no? I figured �Hey Craig, how you doing? Good. Listen, I just want to tell you something. You remember back when she asked you to Homecoming? Yes, I know it was a while ago. Remember what you said to yourself? The fact that you would not let anything go past you. Yes, now is the time to do it. Carpe diem! Go ahead and ask her out. How can she resist you!’ At this time, I realize that I might be able to pull this one off. Then the freight train of reality hit me flat in the chest. Whilst I have been pondering my question of the day, I have let myself enter a position of problem. Between a rock and a hard place if you will. I am at dinner. Bravo, it is a nice place. But not one to be improvising an ask-out plan. Especially if I have been spending my thought process on figuring out whether I should do it or not.

It would be better if I was not wearing a suit and attempting to ask out somebody I love. Wait, love? Did I just say that out loud? Do I really think I love her? An idea to query myself about later. Problem solving time. As an engineering student, I pride myself in being able to find a solution to anything, and then find an even better way to do it. Time to analyze the situation. I am sitting at Bravo. Is it a time when I should ask her out? The solution; ask somebody else. One of Shannon’s band friends is sitting at a nearby table. She spends every day with her. It does not get any better than that. How to get her attention? By a stroke of pure luck, she happened to look my way. Through the violent waving of my hands, so as not to alert Shannon to my plan, I was able to impress the fact that I wished to communicate verbally with her. In order to begin this commune, I dismissed my self to the restroom and upon my return trip pulled Michelle over to the side. While the exact words passed through this conversation are not known by anyone, even me, it went something like this:

“Should I ask Shannon out?”

“Yes.” Good enough for me. Now on the next problem. How to do it? No, the classical �will you go out with me’ will not do. I am most defiantly more dynamic than that! I needed a prop. Something small, so she or I would be able to carry it with us. I could not excuse myself to enter the mall and buy something, so an item on me would have