This evening my friend Amber shared a photo of an old poster on her Facebook page.
Amber is in the middle of the front row.
Here’s a story about that poster.
In high school, Amber’s brother Aron was one of my best friends, and I was at his house all the time for everything from a six-hour game of Axis and Allies to poker night to pinball tournaments. It was the party house. Amber was his gorgeous little sister, and as a joke I’d ask her out now and then when I happened to be over at the house. (Remember that in high school I was an acne-pocked nerd, not the handsome stud I am today.) She’d always have a reason why she couldn’t go out with me, so she’d turn me down and we’d laugh about it and I’d go play spades or whatever.
At some point during my senior year, she asked me if I’d go out with her. Apparently there was this group date or something, and she didn’t have anyone to go with, and I happened to be handy. I thought about it for a moment and turned her down. Hah! The tables were sure turned now!
Fast forward five years.
It was my senior (fifth) year of college, and my friend Andy went with a group of guys up to Mizzou to watch a basketball game. Mizzou was UMR’s big brother– the University of Missouri school everyone knows about– and they had a pretty good sports program. It was a little less than two hours to drive there, so now and again we’d head from Rolla to Columbia for something or other (to see the “big city”, that sort of thing). Anyway, he came back from the basketball game late that night with a poster of the Golden Girls.
What’s more, it was signed by a couple of the Golden Girls! I don’t know which ones– maybe half a dozen or so– but two of them were Amber and Jen (Jen is the brunette right behind Amber). Andy was going on and on about how hot those girls were, and how lucky he was to get their signatures, and wow Mizzou sure had gorgeous women, yada yada.
I casually mentioned that I knew Amber and Jen (Jen is Amber’s cousin and we’d crossed paths now and then in high school). Oh, and Amber had asked me out a few years ago and I’d turned her down.
Andy was flabbergasted. It was so funny to see how unbelievable he thought it was that I’d turned down this gorgeous girl for date… a girl he apparently would’ve taken out on the town without a moment’s hesitation. I explained the story and he deflated a little, but was still impressed.
That might have been the start of my nickname, “Big Dog”, but that’s a whole different story…