First Date

First Date

Darron Johnson

The tapestry of my dating career was held together by this common thread—unbelievably weird experiences. From automotive mishaps to Freudian slips, my experience was largely one of confusion and regret, which makes for hilarious memories now that they are safely 10 to 15 years behind me. Without any Dickensian prologue to this peculiar chapter in my life I was thrown, Robert Zemeckis style, directly into the action without the foggiest idea of what awaited me. No single date embodies the strangeness of these experiences quite so well as the first.

My very first date at the tender age of 16 was with Robyn Williams—not the funny-man-turned-serious-in-later-years actor, but the goddess who graced the halls of dear old AF High back in 1994. This fated night was over before it began. It will be easiest to follow my trail of tears in table form:

Time	Event	Comments
5:00 pm	Depart home	I was in wet clothes because my turn for laundry had been pushed back to Saturday afternoon, and I couldn’t bring myself to wear anything but my black jeans and turquoise No Fear t-shirt.
5:10 pm	Purchase gas	I also took this opportunity to buy a single rose which was never removed from its plastic wrapping.
5:20 pm	Drive past Robyn’s neighborhood	This should have resulted in on on-time arrival at the group’s meeting place, but it turned out that my sense of direction as a new driver was actually very bad.
5:35 pm	Flip a U-turn on an unknown road	This location would later become the Micron facility near I-15 at the point of the mountain.
5:40 pm	See the “Welcome to Highland” sign.	Highland is just one city north of Robyn’s parents’ house.
5:55 pm	Arrive at Brigham Kelly’s house	By nothing short of a miracle, I found the meeting place for our date. I was still without my date, and I had no hope of finding her on my own. Without knocking, I burst through the front door and demanded to know who in the room could show me exactly how to get to Robyn’s house. A few tentative hands went up. I stripped Mike Davis away from his own date to feed me directions to Robyn’s house en route.
6:00 pm	Arrive at Robyn’s house	My clothes were now dry, my palms wet and my face red. I gave her the gas station rose, she gave it to a puzzled sister to put into water. We left.
6:10 pm	Arrive at Brigham’s house redux	Here we met with the other 8 couples to head up into the canyon for a fire and some hot dogs.
6:45 pm	Arrive at Altamont camp ground	The gate was locked, but we were able to get it open, so we caravanned in.
7:00 pm	Burn a hole in my new boot	Trying to make myself useful, I decided to tend the fire. Another helpful guy took on the same responsibility, and when he threw a log into the fire it kicked up ash and embers which fell on the nylon part of my new HiTech boot and immediately singed a hole through the toe.
7:15 pm	Lamely give a hot dog to Robyn	At this point in the night, I realized that I did not know how to talk to girls. Recognizing this weakness, I compensated by getting her food and drinks and standing next to her in stoic silence.
7:30 pm	Ranger escorts our group from the site	Apparently we were not supposed to jimmy open the locked gate.
8:15 pm	Regroup at Heidi Christiansen’s	This was a nice reprieve from the stress of the night. We played night games and watched the SNL.
11:30 pm	Announce that if I don’t leave I’ll get grounded	Actually, this was not as embarrassing as it had played out in my mind for the 40 preceding minutes. I rehearsed it internally as I built the courage to admit I couldn’t be out past midnight. Everyone else agreed it was indeed time to go.
11:33 pm	My car inexplicably begins to bounce	…until I look in the rear view mirror to see the undiluted horror on Josh Pearson’s face as he stares at the back of my parents brand new, leased car.
11:35 pm	Discover I hate Grant Robinson	We used to call Grant “Lenny,” you know the really dumb but strong guy from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Grant had somehow decided to perform a stress test on my little Geo Prism by jumping up and down on the bumper. The Prism failed miserably, evidenced by the bumper which was strong and secure on the passenger side while touching the ground on the driver’s side.
11:50 pm	Depart Heidi’s	Silent and grave, I pulled from the Christiansen home, wondering what form my punishment would take.
11:52 pm	Disengage the clutch to early and stall at a stop sign	This did not help me maintain any emotional control or dignity. I think that my poor date began to grasp my desperation while I pounded my fists into the steering wheel. She commented on how that sort of thing happens to her all the time—sweet girl. I answered her with steely silence and finally a gruff, “Oh ya?”
12:00 am	Drop off date	Distractedly I pulled up to Robyn’s driveway and stopped the car, without killing it this time. I recall her saying something like, “I hope you don’t get into too much trouble with your dad.” Then I think I mumbled something like, “Ya, he’s going to kill me.” With nothing remaining to say she let herself out. I was far too preoccupied with my impending doom to remember to open her door.
12:01 am	Depart Robyn’s	It was fortunate that there were no children in the street or police officers patroling between Robyn’s house and mine. I drove as fast as I could to minimize the damage awaiting me for breaking curfew.
12:08 am	Arrive home	My dad was on the couch watching a re-televised BYU football game. When I came in, he acknowledged me only by turning off the TV and declaring through the darkness, “You’re late. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

That talk was one of the least pleasant I’ve had to date. It wasn’t so much what my dad said, but rather all that he didn’t say while we both gazed into the back of his new car where the bumper should have been.

I paid the piper in many respects for that night, but I also learned something very valuable: Nothing could possibly be worse than that experience so my prospects had nowhere to go but up.