Batman Returns: my first date

Once upon a time, there lived a girl...

So once when I was 13, I had a real date. My first, out-of-the house, to-the-movies date. It was Batman Returns. Not real romantic by all wooing standards, but I didn't care. I could tell someone I "went on a date."

There was a catch, though. His mom had to go with us.

It was not MY idea of a good date, even though I sympathized with both mothers, but I guess neither my date or I had a lot of say in the matter since we needed her to get us to the movie. In the end, there was no win-win because she had to watch all the penguin blood come out of Danny Devito's mouth in the final scenes of the graphic novel-come-animation.

We never went on another date, but I'd look for every reason to call him on the phone or meet up with him when our parents met for boy scout meetings. I didn't really like him ALL that much. He was a year older, kind of dorky but kind of cute, and went to a different school. I was just, well, boy crazy. He ended up losing interest and I ended up getting sick of his "would you rather die being hanged or sliding down a razor and into a bucket of iodine" level of conversations. They were topics better left to all his dorky friends.

Let me back up a bit by explaining that I met this kid getting ready for the annual Boy Scout Day Camp that involved cartloads of projects: handyman, craftyman, applied sciences, and the like. Three days worth of activities that would keep every age and every level of boys' hands and mind busy, but that also need prepping. This is where CG comes in. CG had a Dremel with which he was carving notches out of wood pieces that would become tie slides. I, as the daughter of two active Cub Scout leader parents, did the dutiful thing by coming into all the pre-planning meetings and helped. So I picked up a Dremel, started carving notches, and struck up a conversation. This has always been my style.

Except I missed after about the hundredth piece of wood and ended up Dremeling off some skin. I washed it off, pressed a towel to the wound, and retired from notch-making. A few weeks later, my proactive ways produced what is now infamously known (only in my mind) as the Batman date.