The Geek and The Girl

Here's a short look back a time in my life that was full of transition, and more particularly, embarrassment. When a geek who knows more about nits that tits crosses paths with a beautiful girl, you get something that looks like this:

In my early years at Meijer, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2002, I was focused pretty hardcore on Lacey as "the" girl in my life. We were both juniors at Otsego High School at the time. I wasn't completely ignorant of other beautiful girls around me, but my heart was set and little would change that. Come late 2002, I was firmly entrenched at Meijer and got along with several of my favorite people at the time: Jaime, Ashley, Brittany - all girls, yes, but none a challenge to Lacey in my eyes.

As a teenage guy not yet two years away from graduating high school, I did not even bother to consider myself eligible for all of the college "hotties" at Meijer. I was an uber-geek, after all, chasing after my own beautiful cheerleader, so what chance would I ever have to even talk to the twenty-something poster girls at Meijer?

One of the head cashiers just happened to be one of these incredibly beautiful poster girls. I (the dorky, pudgy, video game-obsessed redhead) found pure beauty while working at dirty old Meijer: long, straight-back midnight black hair, bright green narrow-cut eyes, curves where they counted, and a seductive tan that wasn't obnoxious yet remained irresistibly hot. I even found beauty in her name at the time: Kristen. Stunning all around.

But again, she was a college girl, whatever that entailed at the time of my interpretation: hard-parties, drinking, sex, and generally other more "adult" things than I didn't have much of an interest in during high school. Despite all of Kristen's beauty, it was back to Lacey for me.

Now Kristen and I got along in plenty of fun, relaxing ways while at work. I was a "bagger" at the time - the only position minors were allowed to fill at Meijer at the time - which pretty easily pooled me into a certain stereotype that all the underage workers carried at the time: that of less maturity and experience. Despite this stigma, rumors circulated between a few people at Meijer that Kristen - a twenty-year old college hottie - was going to ask me out on my 18th birthday in the coming weeks - October 4th, to be exact. This was impossible, of course. My mind was made up. Lacey was the center of my life, and even if she wasn't, I was not Kristen material by any means. Any means. Two different worlds - her and I - plain and simple.

I took my birthday off work, of course, so it wasn't until October 5th that I was back to Meijer, and there was immediate awkwardness upon returning. It seemed that everyone in the Service Department drew harsh stares at me as I walked towards the time clock to punch in for the day. I was not sure why this was, but later that night I was told by several people that Kristen was disappointed to not have seen me on my birthday: she had worked the 4th, I had not. Again, I had the overwhelming feeling that this was a collective game that everyone was playing against me, a cruel trick that everyone enjoyed pranking on me, and I wrote it off just as fast as those stares caught me.

Come two days later, I walked into Meijer at my usual 5:00pm, not realizing that I would be making a decision that would be with me to this day, however small in meaning it may now be. Shortly after clocking in, I reported to Kristen (who had head-cashier duties that night) and asked about my first work assignment.

"Why weren't you at work on your birthday?" Kristen snapped at me. "I had a surprise for you."

Was everyone else right? I immediately thought to myself. No. Not possible. I was right. I had priorities in my life, and Kristen wasn't one of them. She was in college, why would she want Dorktastic for a date? I held my breath and pretended not to know about the rumors and jeers.

Kristen kept her eyes locked on me, then smiled. "I was going to ask if you wanted to take me out on a date now that you're eighteen. What do you think?"

I'm not exactly sure what went through my head right at that moment, but I do remember that shock and awe was involved, and my thoughts that probably looked like this: Did she have a crush on me? Did I miss some obvious signs? What about Lacey? Holy hell, what an opportunity! What next?

And of course, like a well-scripted prime time comedy, my uber-geek kicked in and threw all that tension to shit. "Well I don't think I could." I thought about Lacey. "I have a lot to do with school."

Kristen fought for her date. "Well I'm free this weekend. It doesn't have to be long. Just dinner and maybe we could hang out with my roommates."

"Well I don't really have money." I lied to her. I had plenty of money. I think the poorest man in the world would have had money at that point just to say "yes" to Kristen. I said no. I waved my arms in the air a little, cracked an awkward smirk, and laughed under my breath as I walked away from her. I volunteered to push carts on the parking lot. I spent the rest of the night out there thinking about Lacey and Lacey and Lacey some more.

Some years later I was reminded about this incident by a coworker at Meijer. By this time (2006-ish) Kristen was long gone from Meijer, but that incident was well-known to those people who knew her at Meijer. As where I always looked back on that offer for a date as a joke on Kristen's part, even in 2006 I was told that I was an idiot for turning such an offer down. I still couldn't explain myself then.

Now in 2008, graduated from high school and graduated from college, I look back on that incident at one of my many lifetime learning experiences. I wish now that I had gone on that date. To this day I doubt there was a legitimate crush there, I believe Kristen simply found me to be a fun coworker and wanted to extend some of that to a casual dinner maybe once or twice as friends. I took it all the wrong ways as an inexperienced high schooler.

Even if Lacey had not been the complete obsession of my life at the time, I'm not sure how my potential date with Kristen would have turned out. Would I have gone on it and had a good time? Would I have met a bunch of different people and took a completely different path through college? Would something have sparked between Kristen and I after all and lead me somewhere entirely different now if life?

Or did I do the right thing all along? I will never know the truth, and more than anything else, it's the curiosity that drives me further along as I grow older. Sometimes not knowing is the hardest thing to bear. In my case, not knowing is the reason for my reflection on this; fuel for the ever-classic "What if?" question that I stumble upon so often in my life.

Thanks for reading along with my memory trip. B3 out.