Writing about our plans for Valentines Day yesterday made me think about the last Valentines Day I spent with a boyfriend before this one with CB. That would take us to the year 2003, my 4th year in attendance at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I was living in our unofficial sorority house with six, yes, six other girls. All of us were pretty crazy at the time and in various stages of involvement with our respective menfolk or lack thereof. Why was it unofficial, you ask? Well, there’s this archaic law in Pennsylvania (one of many outdated laws in an already backwards state) that states that any house in which more than 5 adult females live is considered to be a brothel. Thus, there are no official sorority houses anywhere in Pennsylvania, as they would all then be considered official whorehouses as well. And please, no jokes or parrallels drawn between sorority girls and prostitutes, okay? You pay prostitutes, us sorority girls will usually do it for some beer or a cameo on Girls Gone Wild so just get your facts straight people!
Anyway, let me just rerail myself here….
The year was 2003 and I had been seeing my boyfriend since November-ish, so this was about 4 months into things. We were exclusive (to my knowledge) but we weren’t taking things very seriously because he was graduating and applying to the Peace Corps while I still had about a year to go to finish my B.A.
Yeah, that’s right, I was in my fourth year and had a year (that ended up being a year and a half) to go to finish my Bachelors…I got distracted, okay? I was a top, high honors student till junior year and then I had this crazydownwardspiralthingthatresultedinaminorbreakdown ahthankyou.
So anyway, we weren’t like, in love or anything, but we were fond of each other and had a good time together. A few days before Valentines the boyfriend asked if I wanted to go out for steak or something on Friday, which, consequently, was Valentines Day. I, being female, knew what day it was and was all “yippee! my first Valentines date in 2 years!” so I planned my outfit and told my sisters that M. (hi M. if you still read this!) was actually taking me out on a date, and not just to the bar to play pool with his fraternity brothers, but an actual for real date…with dinner…that wasn’t pizza!
Friday evening rolled around and I got dressed up semi-nicely(translation-shirt with a preppy v-neck and lots of cleavage and tighter nice jeans), did my hair, put my makeup on…I looked hot. Then the phone rang and it was M.
“Hey, what’s up?” I said.
“Do you have plans for tonight?”
“Um…yeah…you did ask if I wanted to go to dinner the other day, right?”
“You still want to do that?”
“Well, yeah, I kind of asusmed that’s what was happening…I’m dressed and everything…”
“Would you maybe want to go to Pittsburgh instead? A bunch of guys I haven’t seen in years are in town…”
“Okay.”
“Alright, I’ll come pick you up in 20 minutes.”
“Yup.”
I plunked myself down in a chair to wait, my nice dinner plans thwarted by a group of old buddies and an hour long drive to Pittsburgh; then the phone rang again.
“Yeah?”
“I just talked to my friend. We’ll crash at his apartment so bring a pillow and stuff.”
“A pillow? And what? A blanket?”
“Yeah, and extra socks. Sweaty socks make your feet cold. See you in a few.”
Okay, now I was pissed. Sweaty socks meant lots of walking and if we were walking it meant we’d be too drunk to drive. M. and his old fraternity brothers could drink like champs. In fact, the only reason I think I can handle as much Belgian beer as I can is because I started my legal drinking career with this group of people. It was insane, the amount of alcohol these guys could put away in one night. So my nice romantic dinner out had turned into a drinking marathon in one of the rowdier areas in Pittsburgh, the South Side. I stormed up to my tiny room, grabbed a pillow and started jamming over night stuff inside. M. pulled up in his old Ford truck and tapped on the horn. I stomped down the stairs, yanked open the front door, marched stiffly over to the truck, tossed my pillow full of stuff into the back of the cab and climbed inside, slamming the door behind me.
“Are you mad?”
“No.”
“Most chicks would be mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“You sound mad.”
“If you keep asking me if I’m mad, you will make me mad.”
“Okay.”
We drove in silence for a while and then M. started listing who would be there. It turned out I liked several of the guys and had met them before, so by the time we got to the apartment I had loosened up and was ready to have a good time. When we got inside we were informed that M.’s friend’s roommate refused to let M. sleep in his bed, so he (and therefore I too) got to sleep on the floor. Furthermore, everyone else had already eaten, so we would have to run out and quickly grab something before heading out to meet people at the bar.
M. and I trotted back down the stairs and outside into the cold night.
“Have you ever had chicken on a stick?”
“Um…no.”
“Oh, it’s awesome, that’s what we’ll get, and some wantons, those are good too.”
And he led me to one of those portable shacks on wheels that the questionable Asian people set up in vacant lots on Carson Street. There he proceeded to buy to skewers of greasy/sticky, greyish chicken and overcooked peppers along with fried cheese wontons. We carried our dinner back to the apartment and ate quickly, sitting on the couch.
“See,” he said trimphantly, “I told you it was awesome.”
Through gritted teeth I forced a smile. “Yup, you sure did.”
Afterwards we all went out and drank until last call, swayed back to the apartment, shut off the lights and passed out on the blanket on the floor. This was actually how many of our nights ended, although usually ate better and got to pass out on one of our beds.
I spent the next four Valentines Days single, drunk on cheap wine and cheering at the Vagina Monologues.
Cabana Boy did not have to do much this year for me to be a happy girlfriend (even though he followed up our lunch with dinner at the Irish pub Foley’s, a jenever, dessert at Het Oeverloze Eiland, and Hooverphonic in concert).
