Senior year of high school, Christmas dance was a girls-choice dance. One day, I'm sitting at my house and the doorbell rings. I open it up, and there is a girl from my ward from a large family. She has already graduated high school, and is standing on my porch all in wrapping paper like a mummy. I was obviously confused, so she says "well you have to open me." I already want to die. I am 17, being told to weirdly undress some girl. Hiding all the horrible tension I feel, I pull the wrapping paper away and at the end (she was fully clothed, thankfully) she sings a song where she reveals that she is asking me to the dance on behalf of her younger sister, who is really awkward and who I have zero interest in.

This family had like 11 kids, so I am going to a dance with one girl in this family. The other couple is her brother (same family) and he is in my grade. He has asked (?) a random girl to a girls-choice dance, and I've never heard of her before. Just the 4 of us.

The night of the dance, this family happens to all be in charge of our ward's Christmas party. So the plan was for me to drive up to the church, meet them there, and we would all leave together to the dance from the church building. I drive up, park my car, walk into the ward Christmas party, and am IMMEDIATELY met with like 10 different people winking at me and giving me the friendly elbow like "hey, good luck tonight, we heard you guys are going out." I am mortified. I have absolutely zero interest and now the entire ward thinks I am madly in love. I am already ready for the night to end and it started like 30 seconds ago.

We all get in the truck driven by the brother who decides we should go to the dance right away. We show up the moment the lights dim. We are literally the only ones there. He and his date start dancing across an entirely empty floor. I am sitting there with this girl, wanting to die. It is so painful. It is so awkward. No one else shows up for at least 15 minutes.

And do we stay the entire time? Of course we do. The — entire — dance. To the final song, and lights up.

Mercifully the dance finally concludes and I think I'm done. But the guy goes "ok I have a great idea, let's go rent a movie and watch it back at our house." I am dying. This needs to end, but I am totally beholden to whatever because he is my ride home. So we drive down to Video Express which THANKFULLY is closed. Not sure why it was closed at like 11pm on a Saturday, but it was, and it was a mini miracle.

Did that deter him? Absolutely not. He says "no problem, I have an even better idea — I've got a movie at home that you guys will totally love, but it's a surprise." He is totally giddy about a movie he really wants to show us, in a big surprise unveiling.

We drive to his house, sit down, and unable to contain his excitement, throws a move in the VCR. The opening credits pop up. He is almost exploding with joy. What show is it, you might ask?

ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE. This is the show he almost had an aneurism over because he was so lit up with adrenaline. The cartoon Rocky and Bullkwinkle from like the 1960s.

I last maybe 10 minutes, and I'm like ok hey man I have to go.

Problem — my car is not there, it's back up at the church. He says he can give me a ride back up to drop me off, so I'm thinking this is great, I can just cut line and be done.

NO — WE HAVE TO DRAG THE PAIN OUT MORE. Everyone piles back into his truck, we drive to the church. I think well at least I can just hop out here, and avoid any dumb doorstep goodbyes.

WRONG.

I get out. SO DOES THE GIRL. Suddenly I realize I have to drive her RIGHT ON BACK to where we just came from. This way I can definitely make sure to have the most terrible doorstep drop off in history. I drive her back mostly in awkward silence, and walk her to the door, and of course, right behind us is her brother and his date who are also just returning to where we all came from. So there we all are.

I quickly say thanks and see ya later, and if it had been appropriate, would have sprinted in world record time to my car to peel out of there in my 87 Totoya Carolla.