ME?

I had spent the majority of the drive trying to play it cool, but truth be told I was nervous. My hands were shaking and my mouth was dry. My little sister was sitting shotgun and attempting to give me her version of a motivational speech, while I mentally walked through how the next twenty minutes were supposed to play out. I made a slow right turn into our high school football stadium’s parking lot, parked by the fence near the ticket booth, and waited for my friends to show up.

A couple minutes later, a pair of cars pulled into the parking lot and drove up to the fence. Their occupants jumped out and jogged over to join my sister and me. I had facebook messaged a couple of my friends the night before asking if they could help me out. Most of them willingly obliged and promised to show up around seven the next morning at the stadium.

“Did you bring it?”, they asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got it. It’s in my trunk, took me all night to make.” My sister laughed at the reference to the night before as my phone buzzed. I answered, “Hey, what’s up?”

“I’ve got her”, Kaysie’s voice replied.

“Awesome, how far are you from the stadium?”

“About five minutes.” This was perfect. Class didn’t start until seven-thirty, so we had a little extra time.

“Alright, I’ll set it up. See you in a sec.” I hung up the phone – it was time. I hopped the fence and my accomplices followed suit. My friends were carrying the posters and jumped over the short gate to take their places in the bleachers. I surreptitiously walked around the side of the bleachers towards the field. The plan was unfolding flawlessly, everything was going as planned – until: “Boy, come here! What are you doing?”

I froze. I forgot about the groundskeeper. My mind raced as I tried to come up with a somewhat believable excuse. He had obviously been at work for a while. His knees were chartreuse with grass stains and his brow dripped with sweat and disapproval. I was drawing blanks and decided to level with him. “Look sir”, I replied, “I’m trying to ask a girl to prom. Is it cool if my friends and I use the field for the next ten minutes? I promise it will be like we weren’t even here.” I waited anxiously for his response. His stoic expression melted into reminiscence. He smiled and started laughing, “Do what you gotta do, son.”

A wave of relief washed over me and I ran to my spot on the fifty yard line. The sun painted the sky over the bleachers a fiery reddish, orange as I noticed Kaysie’s car pull into the parking lot and watched her quickly blindfold the passenger. This was going to be perfect. I signaled my friends in the bleachers to hold up their signs. A giant “PROM WITH” suddenly appeared as Kaysie led my blindfolded soon-to-be prom date to the middle of the field facing the bleachers. I stood behind her and removed her blindfold. She gasped in surprise and turned as a held up a sign that read “ME?”.