Our Second Date: or How My Family Liked To Humiliate My Teenage Self

I’m pretty sure one of the main reasons Eddie married me is because my tendency to humiliate myself in public would make him seem so suave in comparison.

I mean, when you are standing next to someone who shows up at a wedding in the same dress as the bridesmaids, finds herself naked in front of a priest, or does, well, this, it would be hard not to look like the one who has it all together right?

Our second date should have given him a clue.  Bras were removed, public urination happened, and something very inappropriate happened at a restaurant table, but it was all very PG and probably not at all what you’re thinking. It was also super embarrassing for yours truly. 

We were high school sweethearts, so we started “dating” before either of us could drive. That meant our dates were mostly either being dropped off at the mall or the movies or hanging out at each other’s houses.

One of those early “dates” was when Eddie was allowed to tag along to an out-of-town soccer tournament for my 11-year-old sister.

We drove about two hours and when we got there my sister discovered she had worn the wrong uniform. Oops. The one she was supposed to wear had those weird extra-long armholes that show your bra. Luckily she had the right shirt with her in her bag.

Except my sister hadn’t worn a bra, and 11-year-olds are too old to go flashing themselves to an entire park of middle-aged men standing around at a soccer tournament.

My parents made me take off my bra and give it to her.

The humanity.

It’s super awkward to be forced to take off your underwear through your clothes and hand it over to a relative, but I knew that 15-year-old Eddie probably thought it was kind of hot to know I was no longer wearing a bra, so I could have played that off.

But that’s not the only thing that happened. Oh no.

On the ride home (on which I still didn’t have my bra back because my sister had gotten it all sweaty and gross so I told her to just keep it, hoping my sacrifice would warrant a trip to 5.7.9 for some new clothes) my little brother, who was 4 at the time, announced that he needed to go potty. But we were on a fairly busy road in No-wheres-ville, PA.

Oh, no problem. We don’t want him to go outside because the road is too busy, but Steph has this lemonade she was drinking…

So my parents made me help my brother pee in my lemonade bottle in the minivan in front of my new boyfriend.  

Seriously, they are all lucky I still speak to them.

Eddie was finding all of this hilarious, by the way.

When we got back to our hometown we stopped at a seafood restaurant for dinner. I believe this was the first time Eddie and I had gone out to eat together and I know it was the first time he had gone out in public with my family.

My sister got something stuck in her braces. Or maybe she broke her braces, I really can’t remember.

All I remember is that my parents made me use the toenail clippers I had in my purse and fix my sister’s braces in the middle of the restaurant. (I have no idea why I had toenail clippers in my purse, flip flop season?)

Up until that point, I thought it was the most humiliating day of my life. Lucky for me Eddie loved the fact that my family is never boring and he decided to stick around.

And eventually we learned to drive and we got far, far away. 🙂