Family Induced Bachelorhood

Early in life, your family is everything to you. They’re the only social life you know. It is a time when your mom seems able to fix any problem, when your sisters are your best friends, and your dad (who you only see between work hours) is the closest thing to celebrity that you know.

I can remember Saturday mornings eating breakfast with him, trying to do everything just like him. When he took a spoonful of cheerios, I took a spoonful of cheerios. When he sipped his drink, I sipped mine. I remember time we went camping, just him and me, and we pulled over on the drive home just to play monopoly, and the day he taught me how to catch a football on the run. As a kid, that time you spent with your dad was time you didn’t want to end.

“I couldn't get to sleep that night. I kept thinking about my future. How I was gonna grow up, go to college, raise a family, and be the only All-Pro quarterback who ever had to ride his bicycle to the Superbowl.”

The tenth grade is a year of change. It’s no longer socially acceptable use your bike as your primary mode of transportation. You aren’t old enough to drive, so any time you want to get out you’ve got to ask your parents to take you—unless you’ve got a friend who was held back a grade (which we did, but only so many guys could fit into Scott Youngblood’s ’79 Chevette).

“Hey, Kev! We got some seats over here.”
“Oh, great.”
“Uh, Dad? Let’s sit over here. No thanks, Paul! We’ve got two over here.”

My dad drove me to most of the high school basketball games that year. My friends all sat in the west bleachers, so naturally I’d pick seats for Dad and me in the east stands. We had a good system set up: I’d watch the first half of the game with my dad, then at half time I’d leave him to meet up with my friends.

“Which is not to say that I was embarrassed to be seen with the guy,
even though I was.”

Those first halves were great for Dad and me. We’d talk strategy, he’d point out the players that he recognized from the football team, and I served as historian and background specialist for all the rest of the players. But when you’re 15 years old, you don’t prioritize the time you spend with your father the way you did when you were five. I remember, while I was sitting there with my dad, feeling the weight of the opportunity cost of not sitting in the student section. I’d sometimes look over at the guys just to watch what I was missing out on: telling crude jokes, heckling the other team, mingling with the Kentwood High coeds.

“Them old clod hoppers 've got a real nack for spoilin’ my fun!”

There were girls over there, just waiting for a one way ticket to love-town on the ‘H’ train. All I had to do was go over there and take my pick. But my dad had come to be with me, so the girls would have to wait.

“You guys want to come to a little party?

(Robbie Hudson: RFK's answer to Hugh Hefner. When Robbie spoke, everybody listened.)
My house. Friday… And my parties are couples-only.”

There are two holidays a year, which are geared for couples only: New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day. One might assume that these are the holidays where we single folk just stay home and mourn our solitude, but it’s quite the opposite: couples-only holidays are great opportunities to go to singles-only parties. The benefit of these parties is that you can rest assured that none of the girls you meet are spoken for—no boyfriends holding them back, and no family holding me back.

“I can't make it...to the party.”
“Why not?”
“Well... my family... always has this...big, huge!... Valentine's Day...dinner.”
“A Valentine's dinner?”
“Oh, yeah... it's kind of a tradition in my house. You know, relatives come, mom cooks. Stuff like that.”

This year, with those two holidays combined, I got invited to 5 such parties, but I couldn’t make it to any of them and I’ll give you three guesses why: family. My brother in law, Sam, was staying with me on New Year’s Eve and my Dad over the weekend before Valentine’s. So, once again my opportunities to meet girls have been thwarted by my familial loyalty.

“For me, to ask a woman out - I've got to get into a mental state, like the karate guys before they break the bricks.”

But no matter, meeting girls at parties isn’t really my style anyway. Sure you can meet some pretty girls there, but a comely face isn’t enough to motivate me to asking a girl out. I’m more likely to go for a girl that I meet at school, or work, or church—someone I can meet, be impressed with, and bump into a few more times. And if I’m still impressed with her after each of those casual encounters, that’s when I feel like asking a girl out.

“Will you be going to church tomorrow, Joseph?”
“T’will be devine and holy… We can share a pew, me and you.”
“Too-da-loo.”
“Same to you.”

There’s a girl at church that I’ve had my eye on since early November. I first noticed her because she’s so cute, but as I explained—that’s never motivation enough for me to go out of my way to meet a girl… But then she spoke in sacrament meeting a month ago and she was so bright, and so witty, and (most impressive of all) so normal—which seems to be an unattainable quality for 95% of the girls I’ve meet in my five years in Utah. So I introduced myself a few weeks ago.

This past Sunday I noticed her again. There she was, in a pew on one side of the isle wearing the loveliest black and white polka-dot dress; and there I was, in a pew a few rows back on the opposite side of the isle… sitting next to my dad (visiting from out of town). When the meeting let out Marianne and I bumped into each other in the middle of the isle. We both said hi and began to make small talk (actually, I had been working on what kind of small talk I could bring up with her ever since I’d noticed her take her seat).

“Through the force, things you will see.”

Have you ever run into somebody unexpectedly, and half way through your conversation with them you realize that the whole time you’ve been talking you’d been standing in the doorway and blocking everyone behind you from getting through? No one has to draw your attention to that fact, you just get this feeling—like a Spidey sense—that you ought to look behind you, and it never surprises you to see that your hunch was right. Well, I got that feeling as I was talking to Marianne; only it wasn’t a stranger behind me just waiting to get past, it was my ever-patient, “ready-to-go-when-you-are” dad. My dad—one of my best friends and yet one of the dealiest squelchers of mojination.

“As you know, every diabolical scheme I've hatched has been thwarted by Austin Powers. And why is that, ladies and gentlemen?”
“Because you never kill him when you get the chance

and you're a dope?”
“No, because Austin Powers has ‘mojo’.”
“mo-JO?”
“Yes, MO-jo. The mojo is the life force, the essence,

the libido, the ‘right stuff’.”
“It's what the French call a certain ‘I don't know what.’

… Without his mojo, Powers will be...powerless?”

I now understand why they ask the crowd to quiet at sporting events, like before service at Wimbledon or preceding a crucial putt in the Masters—it’s very difficult to perform when distracted. With my dad at my side, my mojo was shot. I realized that the best thing to do would be to just end the conversation and hope for better luck next time. So I introduced her to my dad, and excused myself saying that I needed to hurry him to the air port.

On the way out, Nancy—the committee chair for the calling I’m serving in pulled me aside for an impromptu meeting. I explained my time crunch and she promised to keep the meeting short, so there in the back of the chapel, Nancy, John and I exchanged ideas and plans for making the ward directory. To the looker on it probably seemed more like a couple of friends catching up on the weekend’s goings on than the collaboration of the ward’s sharpest minds. A few minutes into it, I got a tap on my shoulder. It was Marianne. With a doubting look she said, “I thought you said you had to take your dad to the airport.”

“You say you can't sleep. Heart break? Bad Dreams?”
“Well, there is one dream where in my dream, I'm Spider-Man. But I'm loosing my powers.”

WHERE WAS MY WARNING, SPIDEY SENSE NOW?! I stumbled to explain that it was a something for my calling and tried to salvage the situation by acting silly and shewing her off as if it were some sort of top secret meeting, but looking back it probably came across as more offensive than silly.

Shortly after, Dad and I headed home, quickly ate, and zipped off for the airport so he could be early enough to check in for his 7 o’clock flight. It was great having him for the weekend, but I have to admit I felt a little relieved at the thought that I’d finally be able to sleep on my own bed (where Pops had been while I took the living room couch), plan and cook for only one, and once again enjoy the dependability of my mojo with the ladies.

When I got home I started a video game, and had been playing for just over 30 minutes when my door bell rang. I expected it was probably just the neighbor kids—they stop by every once and a while asking if they can take out my trash for money. I had just emptied my garbage the day before, so I opened the door, preparing to let the kids down gently…

“Doc. Doc! DOC!”
“Ahh!”
“Okay, relax. Doc, it’s me! It’s Marty.”
“No, it can’t be. I just sent you back to the future.”
“Yeah, for all I know you did send me back to the future,
but I’m back. I’m back FROM the future.”
“Great scott!”

…Only, it wasn’t a neighbor kid at the door. It was Dad. I couldn’t believe it. I felt just like how Dr. Emmit L. Brown must have felt on Saturday, November 12th, 1955 at precicely 11:05 PM. Turns out Dad had misread his flight itinerary. He was supposed to have departed at 7 AM, so when he showed up that evening to check in, there was no flight for him to board. My phone hadn’t been working all day, so instead of calling he rented a car and planned on returning the next day for the Monday morning 7 AM flight.

Turns out the entire miscommunication at church could have been avoided, I could have taken dad to the airport before church, I could have had plenty of time to talk to Marianne and I could have had zero distractions while doing so. And projecting that scenario into the future, I’d practically be engaged by now, but I’m not, and it’s all thanks to family.

“Looking back, maybe it all seems a little silly. But being there, in those passing moments... I saw that something real and important was happening... for all of us. In our small and fragile, almost-insignificant suburban family. After all, those were passionate times when children were pioneers on the road to find out wherever that road might take them. When brothers and sisters, looking back, wished they'd known each other better.”

It seems like most of the chances I’ve had to meet a mystery girl have been interrupted by one thing or another. Maybe I could have ended up living happily ever after with one of them, but I know enough about girls to know that when things don’t work out with one, eventually there will be another that comes along. And after youth and hormones surrender themselves to age and wrinkles, I won’t remember the names or the faces of the girls I wished I’d met, but I’ll always have my family; and I’d rather look back in regret for not having known those strangers than for not having known my family.

“Sacrifice (săk’rə-fīs’) v. To forfeit (one thing) for another thing considered to be of greater value.”