A boy calls a girl on the telephone. They talk about normal teenage things for a few minutes, and then the boy says, “What are you doing tonight?” Actually, it comes out more like, “Whatcha doin’ tonight?” The boy is trying to sound confident, which (surprisingly) he is.
Much to his dismay, the girl replies, “Homework.”
Trying not to sound the least bit put off, he bounces back, “How about tomorrow afternoon?”
Again, she says, “Homework.”
The boy feels his earlier self-confidence beginning to wane. With hesitation in his voice, he tries one more time. “Tomorrow night?”
He holds his breath.
“Homework,” she replies for a third time.
The conversation goes quiet. They talk a bit longer, but the wind has left the boy’s sails. He lets her go, says goodbye, and hangs up the phone… perplexed by what happened.
At the other end of the telephone line, the girl is happy that the boy has called. They went out for the first time the night before… to a high school football game… and she likes him... a lot.
Her mother, not far away, overhears most of the conversation, and by the time her daughter hangs up the phone, her curiosity is piqued because something about it doesn’t seem right. She asks her daughter what she and the boy were talking about near the end of the conversation, and the girl recounts it for her.
The girl’s mother remains silent for a few seconds and then says, “You know he was asking you out… right?”
The girl’s smile quickly fades. She had taken the boy’s words literally. To her, he simply asked what her plans were for that night and the next day… which was homework. She was swamped with homework. She did not realize he was asking her out for a second date.
The girl thinks she has “blown it,” and the boy thinks he somehow “messed it up.” The girl does not have his telephone number, nor does she know where he lives. They used to work together, but that was over the summer, now past.
The boy thinks he was on the receiving end of a brush-off. The girl hopes he will call again. But he does not. So she puts her hopes into running into him at college, where they both take classes (but unfortunately, none together, nor even on the same days or nights). The boy decides to withdraw from the situation in an attempt to put it behind him.
But it continues to nag at him; she stays in his thoughts constantly. He cannot get her off his mind.
Three months go by. The girl is sure now… she blew it. But the boy is not so sure about the phone call anymore… “Our date the night before went so well,” he says to himself. He decides he needs to be sure, one way or the other. So, on a Wednesday night in December, he goes looking for the girl at college… he knows she has a class that night of the week. It is three months after their first date in September… which took place three months after they first met in May.
He decides to head for the student lounge first. When he enters, she is there, and she looks up at him as he comes in. He notices but decides not to react. Truthfully, he did not expect to find her so quickly and is unsure what to do. He makes his way to an empty table and sits down, pulling out one of the books he brought with him. He plans to act as if he is studying while contemplating what to do next.
But it matters not. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices someone standing beside him. He looks up, and the girl smiles a beautiful smile and says, “Hi.”
The above is a true story. It really happened. The unfortunate telephone conversation took place on September 6th, 1975, the day after their first date, and the young couple’s heartfelt reunion happened on December 10th. They have been together ever since.
This is where the immortal Paul Harvey would say…. “And now you know... the rest of the story.”
