Worst Date Hall of Fame: Jessica

I didn’t live close to any guy who was LDS and not interested in dating my sister. That made dating a little more difficult. Once, I mentioned at a youth dance to this guy (we’ll call him Jim) that I wanted to go to a school dance with an LDS guy. Jim, being the attentive male that he was, picked up on that. Three days later, back at home, the phone rings. My dad answered. The guy asked for me. The connection was a bit fuzzy, and my dad said “Who? Melissa?”. Jim hesitated, worried that he had my name wrong, and said, “Um, yeah”. So, my dad got Melissa, my little sister who would have been about 9 at the time. Jim proceeded to ask Melissa to my homecoming. She giggled, and handed me the phone. Poor Jim. That actually has little relevance to the story, only that it sets the stage for a disaster yet to come.

We made all the arrangements for Jim to come down for Homecoming. He would come in the morning, spend the day, go to the dance with me, and then sleep over and drive home the next morning. It was a long drive for him, so this seemed like the best plan. But, it did leave a large chunk of time for this young man to spend with my family. The first thing my family always does when meeting a new person is ask them about their musical background. My dad would then invite the person to play any instrument they played. If they didn’t play any, he invited them to listen while we did. We owned, and had a member of the family who played, nearly every standard instrument. It just so happened that Jim played a more unusual one. He played the accordion. Oh, but we are in luck, my family owns an accordion. My mom sent me back to drag it out of the guest bedroom closet, and he followed me. This led to an awkward moment of him and I being alone in the guest bedroom, as I pulled it out of the case. Rather than taking it back to the living room, he takes it from me, and begins to play it.

Okay, get the whole picture here. Me, stuck in a bedroom with guy I barely know playing the accordion. He is between me and the door. My sisters and parents all out in the living room, where they can hear the accordion.

And, what does he play? He plays “I can’t help falling in Love with you”. I wish it were just one verse. In fact, I wish he had only just done the song. He kept losing his place, and starting over, and getting lost. I think I may have heard the whole thing three or four times.

Wait, did I mention, he was singing it, too? Oh, I forgot that. Yeah, I’d like to forget it, too.

At some point in maybe the 8^th or 9^th verse, I hear this loud noise come from the kitchen. Quick, a chance for my escape. I say I need to find out what happened, and ran out of the room.

I did find out what happened. I found out that my sister had been sitting on the kitchen counter, laughing with my mom about it, and got to laughing so hard, she fell off.

To this day, my sisters like to sing the song around me. This, of course, gave my husband the opportunity to learn the whole story. This means, that song doesn’t ever go away. All I need to do is tease my guy about being a bit more romantic, and he breaks into it.

I do feel bad for poor Jim. I hope he was able to refine both his accordion playing skills, and his romance skills, before too late into his life.