A Stumble in the Right Direction

A Stumble in the Right Direction - Good Old Mum

I kept pinching and pinching to check if it was a dream, and after the fiftieth time I figure it wasn’t. That’s when it hit me; I was going on a date with Mick Anderson, the most popular guy in the grade, not to mention the cutest. The guy who I had liked since I’d first started coming to the school. And all it took for him to ask me out was a day hanging about in Chicken Manure? When does that make sense? Well you know what they say, love works in mysterious ways.  But then again I don’t really think I love him considering I only just started to talk to him about nine hours ago.  While all these thoughts run through my head dad had walked in and was grabbing a glass of juice.

“Hey honey do you some juice and soda water?” he asked.

I pushed the thought of Mick Anderson to the back of my head to process the question dad had just asked me.

“Oh sure dad,” I replied, thinking how thirsty I actually am.

After dad poured me some juice I decided to ask him about the movie next Saturday.

“Hey dad, um Mick was wondering if I could go to the movies with him next Saturday, is that okay?” I asked, slightly nervously considering his reaction he had made this morning when I told him about Mick helping out.

“Awwww, I knew he liked you,” said my dad, lifting his eyebrows up and down at me.

“So I can go?” I asked

“Yeah sure, he seems like a nice enough boy, he worked very well today,” he stated.

“Thanks dad!” I shouted and gave him a hug.

The next week went past very slowly, not to mention the mountain of assignments that I received from my teachers. Mick had asked his parents about Saturday and they had said yes. Since the Christmas holidays were just around the corner there were plenty of Christmas Cartoons on at the theatres. We decided to settle for a cartoon on a boy who discovers that Christmas isn’t all about what you receive, including a hilarious script; well that’s what the producers said. 

The time we decided on was 6:30 pm. He told me he would come around my house at 6:00 pm and we would walk to the cinema which happened to be only 3 km away.

I told Beck about our date and instead of giving me the “I told you so, speech” she hugged me than ran around the whole school telling everyone she knew about the date. Which was slightly embarrassing, but who cares, I was going on a date with Mick Anderson!

I kept walking past Mick and we would smile and wave at each other. I had to ask him if it was okay if he came over on Thursday because being my mum she wanted to properly meet him before Saturday. Typical Mum.

That afternoon while I was drinking a mixture of soda water and juice there was a knock on the door. I knew it would be Mick so before I went to the door I checked how I looked in the mirror (sad isn’t?) and opened the door.

“Hey Mick,” I said with a smile.

“Hey Em,” he greeted.

“Okay, prepared yourself for a freaky experience,” I warned him as he entered our house. “My mum can be a little, let’s say different or protective,”

“I’m sure she’s not too bad, can’t be as bad as mine,” he replied causally. He spoke too soon.

At that moment my mum yelled from her bedroom “Is that Mick down there?”

“Yeah mum, he’s here,” I said while praying that today she magically going to be different. However I knew I was going to be disappointed.

“Okay coming down,” she yelled back.

I catch the first glimpse of my mum coming down the stairs and I knew from the look of the pieces of paper in her hand that this wasn’t going to end well, particularly for me.

“Hi, Mick I’m Emma’s Mum but you can just called me Mrs Williams,” mum said when she finally made it downstairs.

“Nice to meet you Mrs Williams,” replied Mick, not knowing what he was in store for.

“So, I don’t know what your mother has told you about dating, but personally I think it’s good, however only at appropriate times,” mum said, not knowing that she was properly ruining every slim chance of Mick ever coming over again. “You and Emma are sixteen now and I think that age is fitting age to date. However you still need to set boundaries for yourself and your date. For instance, not letting yourself be alone in a room together,” For goodness sake mum we were just going to the movies! However I didn’t say anything I let her have her speech which properly wasn’t the best idea, but what could I do? She even showed Mick and me the statistics (which were on her pieces of paper) the advantage you would receive from abstaining from “it” until marriage. The main benefit she highlighted was the sexually transmitted diseases you could obtain from have “it” before marriage.

I really didn’t want to look beside me and see Mick’s face however I unfortunately caught a glimpse of it, and not surprising he looked like he wanted to explode with laugher.

Finally, after what seemed like forever (properly because it was) mum had finish and asked Mick and me if we wanted a drink and left us to talk about what we had just witnessed. By now Mick’s face was red from keeping his laughter in.

“I’m really sorry about that,” I apologised. I prepared myself for the “your mum is the biggest weirdo ever,” sentence, but instead  he said “Don’t worry about it, I think it’s cool that your mum cares so much about who you date and how you date,” he replied with a smile.

“Really?” I questioned.

“Yeah for sure, not many people can say that they have a mum so amazing, that she gave you and your date a talk on the boardies of dating,” he said with another one of his heart melting smiles.

“Yeah I guess I never thought about it that way,” I replied with a smile back.

We were silent for a couple of minutes, and then mum came in with our drinks. We talked for about another thirty minutes. Did I ever think that a week ago I would be sitting in my living room with Mick Anderson chatting with my mum? No way. And when did I ever think that Mick was this kind of guy? Never. I just thought he was a hot jock, who was nice. Today showed me a whole different side of him I’d never been able to see before. So, maybe, just maybe, my mum’s dating boundaries talks aren’t that bad.

Mick left, and while my mum and I were waving him off, I turned to her and said “Thanks Mum,” and she gave me a hug and we both walked back inside.