Evening, folks, and welcome to the beginning of our first full week together.
Yeah, I know that means we’ve still got three+ weeks left to go until the earth’s axis flips for us all, but in the meantime, I’ll do my best to keep up with this sort of soup-to-nuts thing we seem to have going.
Anyway, as for today’s leg of the journey, let’s welcome in tonight’s special guest, 25.
As luck would have it, it was just a few weeks after my 25th birthday when I experienced one of the stranger evenings of my then-young life.
I was living in New York City, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when I got a call from the girlfriend of a college buddy of mine. As I recall, they’d only been dating a short time, but she was planning a surprise party for him. And when I arrived at the event exactly one week later, I quickly learned that the surprise nature of things would go well beyond the
simple theme of the party.
The birthday bash took place back near my parents’ home, not far from my old high school. I didn’t know her at all, but it turned out that the girl giving the party was a few years behind me in school, and she must have thought it might be more fun to celebrate the event out in the burbs.
The surprise came off without a hitch, and the party gradually moved outside, into the cooling late summer air.
At one point, I walked over to grab a drink with a few of my friends, and I noticed several girls off by themselves. Taking a healthy gulp of the beer I was drinking, I didn’t give it much thought when each of the girls wandered over by where we were standing, each one prettier than the next.
For those of you who know me, I think you’d agree that I’m far from quiet. (Dare I say, I generally like to talk a lot.) In that moment, though, I suddenly found myself shier than a three-year-old.
As I mentioned, each one of the girls was exceptionally pretty. And each was young. Like really young.
And there it was: A foursome of young beauties standing opposite yours truly and three of my friends. Simple happenstance?
Not a chance.
I learned later that two of the girls were the younger sisters of the party hostess, while the other two were friends from the neighborhood.
Not really sure what to do next, fighting off some weird combination of embarrassment and excitement, I eventually started talking to one of the girls, Sue, who had just started her senior year in high school.
We talked for a while, and it soon became very clear that the girls (yep, all four of them) had a plan.
And then, with all the subtlety of a loud band saw, every one of the girls paired off, gently taking the hand of each of their respective male counterparts. Some sort of fractured game of spin-the-bottle was materializing right in front of me, and I wasn’t sure if I should embrace the impetuous nature of it or walk away before I did something regrettable. (Let’s check that, though, regarding the moment being spontaneous. To this resourceful quartet, it was anything but that.)
So anyway, there I am, being led by the hand into a quiet corner of a perfectly manicured suburban lawn, complete with a large sprinkler system.
Sue (a neighbor and friend of the party girl’s younger sister), who had quietly become my “date” for the evening, explained that she and her pals thought it might be sort of fun to well, kiss someone older.
That was some 35 years ago, and I still remember this sweet 18-year-old girl (yes, eventually got confirmation on that) coming clean on her plan – the plan to make out with some older guy at a surprise party for some stranger she’d never see again.
We talked for a while longer, she explaining that she had a boyfriend, her plans for college, etc., and I tried my best to enjoy the oddly random nature of the moment.
The time for talk soon ended, and she made her move, kissing me gently on the mouth and laughing like a little girl, shocked perhaps by her own resolve.
I kissed back, reminding myself to keep the encounter as G-Rated as possible, later wondering how I would ever explain the
moment to anyone.
Guess I just got tired of wondering.
Well, time for this old man to call it a day.
Hope to see you back here tomorrow.
JFish
@Copyright 2023 by John L. Fischer