Valentines Day of my sophomore year in high school is a day I'll never forget. Cachinnatees, it may surprise you to know that I was never much of a Casanova growing up... and here's a major reason why:

My church's youth group was doing a dinner and party at my friend's house for Valentine's Day. (Youth groups always do something on Valentine's Day to try to keep an eye on teenagers so they won't go humping around.) I had a crush on an older woman; we'll call her Nancy. She was a junior. Hubba hubba. I somehow worked up the nerve to ask Nancy to be my date. And she said yes. There's no logical explanation for it, so just roll with me.

We went out to a nice dinner and then off to my friend, Dooley's, house. See, Dooley had a pool table in his basement, so it was where the youth group always went for parties and what not. By this time, I was feeling pretty frickin' cool. The pretty girl was with me, I was popular in the youth group, and Nancy and I were shooting some pool with another couple. I was actually playing pretty well too.

Then it happened: I was sliding around the corner of the table to line up a shot and my fly caught on the table's corner piece. How it actually happened... I'll never know. The corner piece ripped open my fly and pulled it off track. Frantically I tried to fix it, but to no avail. It was broken. Everyone was laughing. Nancy was trying very hard to be polite, but there was no mistaking the shade of purple her face was turning and the violent shaking she was trying to suppress.

I finally told Dooley to get a safety pin from his mom. He ran upstairs laughing and I tried to play it off. I laughed with the others and pretended like we were going to go on with the game with me just pressed up against the table. That lasted for about three minutes until Dooley returned. He had his hand behind his back and he was almost crying because he was trying not to laugh. He then tells me that his mom couldn't find a safety pin, so she sent the next best thing. He took his hand from behind his back to reveal a big plastic chip clip.

(Dooley's mom is a notoriously sick woman.)

I had no choice. I fastened the chip clip to my fly and made as big of a joke as I could of it. For some reason, Nancy and I never went out again. It may have had to do with the fact that I could never work up the nerve to ask her again. Or it may have been that she started dating other guys who were older, cooler, better looking, and sans chip clips on their flies.

I'm still not sure where that one ranks on my scale of bad date stories, but it's right up there at the top along with being ditched at three straight Homecomings by three different girls. (If I heal from telling this story, I may get into that sometime.)

Anyway, needless to say, my life has gotten better. Beeki loves me chip clip and all. Happy Valentine's Day.