How Not to Impress a Girl
by Heather Vacca Voccola in Family on Monday, July 13, 2009 6:00 AM
Among the most daunting experiences in a young man’s life is “meeting the parents.” This event is inevitable if you ever hope to escape the exciting life of the single man. Why eating beans out of the can on a nightly basis is considered exciting is something I’ve never quite understood.
Upon meeting the girl of your dreams, and slowly discovering that she might be willing to settle for you, you begin to realize that happiness is within grasp; you envision a blissful future involving a picket fence and children in the yard. She laughs at your jokes and shares your most cherished beliefs. All that remains is meeting the parents, winning them over, and the American dream is yours. All that remains? These people, were their little girl in trouble, would be able to bench press an SUV. They are sure to look at any potential son-in-law with a critical eye, both for their sake and their daughter’s. Clearly, first impressions are important in such a situation.
So let me offer a cautionary tale to any young husbands-in-waiting. Do not do as I did.
My girlfriend and I had courted through the mail after meeting as orphanage volunteers in Mexico. After a few months of corresponding, I made a trip to visit her and “meet the parents.” Things were going great. In my mind’s eye, I was whitewashing the picket fence … and then we went to church, and I did something the mere thought of which makes me shudder; I’d never done it before and have never done it since. It’s one of those stories that begins, “It happened so fast,” and ends with a pitiful attempt to explain yourself that falls flat.
I made change in the collection basket.
(As an aside, being human and generally reluctant to accept responsibility for my actions, I have discovered a scapegoat. Where I grew up, tradition was revered, and the proud office of usher at Mass demanded multiple talents, not the least of which was collecting money by means of a basket at the end of a long stick. The hand/eye coordination demanded of these modern-day knights always impressed me as a lad. How did they pull it off without banging people in the face? However, at my wife’s church these once proud symbols of Catholic manhood have seen their role reduced to that of a mere functionary who passes a little basket to the first pew and then supervises as it is passed from hand to hand. Alas, everything changes and not always for the better.)
But back to the unfortunate occurrence. As soon as the exchange was made and the basket left my hands, I realized the magnitude of my error. Perhaps my girlfriend’s eyes, which were boring a hole through me, and the mortified look on her face assisted me in this tardy epiphany. Like a turtle I tried to retract my head, which had taken on the approximate hue of a ripe tomato. Failing in this, I stared straight ahead and tried to assume a posture of devotion. Thinking that this romance of my dreams was over, caput, finito, I earnestly invoked St. Jude’s protection; he is after all the patron of lost causes, and if ever a cause was lost, so I thought at the time, mine was.
Fortunately, nothing was said by my girlfriend’s parents about the incident. Unfortunately, my girlfriend was all too eager to talk about it. To begin with, she informed me that I was wrong in thinking that the fact that I made change for a $5 bill was the problem. She was unmoved by my claims that I wanted to hold some in reserve just in case I saw something she might like later in the day. For her, it was a matter of principle.
So, to young suitors, I say again, don’t make change in the collection basket at church when you are with your girlfriend. But if you do, don’t feel that all is lost. That girlfriend has been my wife for over thirteen years, and I think she’s forgiven me. Well, at least she married me, and I no longer eat beans from a can, at least not for the main course.
—John Moorehouse is the editor of CMQ. He writes from Santiago, Chile. Catholic Men’s Quarterly is a 52-page print magazine featuring apologetics, sports, humor, travel, military history, and lots of other things the man in your life would like to read (and which you’d like him to read). Download a free sample issue, peruse past articles, and then subscribe online at Catholic Men’s Quarterly.
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