Mystery Science Theater

4. Mystery Science Theater

The weekend after the mini golf date, my parents came down for a football game. My roommates and I had bought All Sport Passes and my parents had also gotten them. So every weekend there was a game, my parents came to watch and hang out for a few hours. I loved it - kept the homesickness I'm sure I would've felt otherwise, at bay. I had told my mom that I found out Garrett liked the Mystery Science Theater movies as well. So after saying hi and giving hugs when they came down for the game, my mom said she had a surprise for me. She pulled out our family's favorite Mystery Science Theater movie from her purse. She told me that she had thought it would be a fun date idea to watch it with Garrett. Wow! I was so excited and pretty darn surprised!! First, I knew my parents were happy that I was dating and having fun, but also a little nervous that I was starting to hang out so much with one guy. Second, I knew my mom knew what a movie date meant in the terms of cuddling, hand holding and such. Third, my mom seemed pretty excited for me! I gave her a hug and teased my dad for his reaction: rolling his eyes and joking around about dating. We went to the game and had a really fun time. After the game when I was texting Garrett, I told him about my mom bringing me the movie. I posed the big question, did he want to watch it with me the next week?? 

In fact he did. Because we both were pretty busy during the week, we decided to watch the movie the following Saturday. I didn't know how I was going to wait all week! But thankfully because of how busy I was with school things, the days went by faster than I thought they would. Before I knew it, Saturday came around. 

I got all ready and brought out the big guns: big, curly hair. For some reason, every guy I had met loved curly. I decided it might be a good idea to try it out on Garrett. One of my best friends, Hali, had asked me to call her and FaceTime when I was all done and ready for a "fashion show". She was always my go-to girl when it came to needing date out-fit advice. She approved and we talked about everything like we usually do until I got a message from Garrett that he was outside. We said our goodbyes and I took one last check in the mirror. I remember feeling how crazy it was that I wasn't really nervous. Definitely more nervous than I had been for our first date (I think you're just usually more nervous for the second date anyways).  I hurried down stairs to again find him waiting at my door, again, looking all handsome and such, ready to open it for me and drive over to his house. 

I had learned before that he lived in his Grandparents basement in a house with four of his cousins that was actually just across the street in a cul-de-sac by my apartment complex (this proved to be VERY convenient for those late night hang outs when he was almost too tired to take me home). He and his cousins shared the downstairs and his Grandparents lived upstairs. There had been an issue in the past of letting the grand kids live in the house by themselves. So Garrett's grandparents had to move back into the house. But the grand kids were always taken care of by Grandma and Grandpa which is a huge blessing. His grandparents will keep helping everyone and anyone as long as they're here. They were kind enough to let us live in their basement after our wedding until we could move into our apartment! We love his grandparents and I love the whole family. 

Getting back on track, when we got to Garrett's house we went down stairs and I was introduced to his other cousin, Jacob who was hanging out in the living room. He was nice enough to let us use the living room and TV while he went somewhere else. We put the movie into the DVD player but it didn't work. Garrett had programmed it to play his Norwegian DVDs but it didn't want to take an American disc.We practiced some team work trying to reprogram the player. After we got it working Garrett and I went up stairs to make some popcorn. 

Grandma was in the kitchen making some food and cleaning up a little bit so I was able to meet her. (Not until  later did I learn that Grandma had met her fair share of girls her grandsons had brought home. She has a pretty keen idea which ones will stay and which ones won't stay around too long.) She asked me about myself and asked where Garrett and I had met/gotten to know each other. The popcorn machine was still going and Garrett was checking on it when I told Grandma that we had met in our Chemistry class. She quickly said something like, "Oh really? That's where Grandpa and I met; in our first year chemistry class!" I could feel my face kind of heat up and I noticed that Garrett stood a little bit more still. In my head I was thinking, "Well... That's kind of a coincidence!" I asked her if she had studied more in Chemistry but she told me that a pretty soon after she and Grandpa had met in their class, they got married. I kept thinking how funny of a coincidence that was.

We went back downstairs to start the movie. Now this is the most awkward part: where do you sit? Where do you put your hands? How do you sit?? - you want to be ready for his hand or opportunity cuddle but still be comfortable to enjoy the movie if the guy decides not to do anything at all. I sat down on one end of the couch and picked up the pillow that was there and hugged in on my lap. Well... not the best position for possible hand holding but it was comfortable! The pillow also proved to be a good thing to have been holding onto. Garrett sat down next to me but a little ways away. We started the movie and watched I'd say about 10 minutes of it before Garrett reached over and stole the pillow from me. Ok, so before this I had been semi annoyed because when I sat down, I just had this feeling that he wasn't going to try anything unless I did. Like it was going to be some kind of competition between us who could last longest or a fun test to him how long he could make me wait before I cuddled with HIM. Apparently that didn't work. He stole the pillow and I was still annoyed so I held on. If I couldn't cuddle with him then I wanted that pillow to hold onto! 

I was kind of in an awkward position right then: me holding onto the pillow which he was holding on his side furthest away from me. So pretty much my upper body was in his lap. My stubbornness told me that I didn't care as long as I was holding the pillow to take it back. But after probably a minute sitting there Garrett put one of his arms over my shoulder and with his other hand, put the pillow to the side then held my hand. We sat like that for the rest of the movie. It was the best! Eventually he rested his head on my head that was resting on his shoulder. I was very much content and I don't think I paid much attention to the rest of the movie much. After the movie was over, we talked and he suggested we go to 711 for a slurpie. I had been half expecting him to take me home right after the movie so I was really happy when he suggested 711. 

We pulled up to 711 and when we were walking inside, something made my arm swing forward and my hand tried to grab his. It wasn't exactly accurate... haha I hit more of his hip/butt than his hand and It surprised Garrett. But pretty quickly he grabbed my hand back and we went over to the slurpie machines. He says that he thought it was cute because it was like i was trying to say to everyone around, "yep, this is mine."  I was SOO happy he grabbed my hand back! I was starting to see how many things I did on instinct when I was with him. Things I don't usually do until I know someone for a while longer. But something about Garrett broke all those tendencies. 

Garrett is really good with people. He can talk to anyone anywhere with ease. When we were in line, there was a biker-looking trucker who was buying some cigarettes. Garrett got to talking with him and we had fun joking around with him. I guess we had become fast friends because he invited us to come to his truck so he could get his phone and show us a picture of his motorcycle that he had been telling us about. I was more than a little surprised when Garrett quickly said that yes, he'd love to see the picture! They guy was really nice but we didn't know him and I wasn't too sure about going to his truck. Garrett was there though and I could run fast if anything happened. 

We walked to the edge of the parking lot but for some reason I kept walking towards the big 14 wheeler. Garrett hurried and pulled me back and laughingly told me that it might not be a good idea to go all the way to the truck. I had done it unthinkingly but laughed with Garrett as we waited for the guy to come back from his truck. When he came back, first, his phone wouldn't work. That took around 5-10 minutes to fix. Then he started showing us pictures of his grand kids and telling us all about his kids and what they were up to. That took 10-15 minutes. Then he had to hurry and skip over some "sexy" pictures and finally got to the pictures of his motorcycle. Garrett asked him about it and we talked about it for a little bit. We both were ready to head out of there though. I felt bad a little, because obviously the guy was lonely and was happy to talk to us. Garrett told him that we needed to leave and "meet up with his cousins". We got in the car and started laughing at how random that whole conversation had been! Again, I thought that he was going to take me home but was very happy to notice that he drove right back to his house. 

We went back down stairs and I was able to meet another of Garrett's cousins, Mitch, who was sitting by Jacob on the couch. Garrett and I sat on the other couch and immediately cuddled and held hands (so awesome.) He was so comfortable! After a little bit I had to go to the bathroom. Later I learned that when I left, Garrett's two cousins told him that they thought I was cute and good job for hanging out with me. Hehehe, that made me feel good. When I came back we sat with each other holding hands when Grandma came down and started to talk with us. We talked for quite a bit and the whole time Garrett kept holding my hand and playing with my fingers. The whole time, I had felt a special connection with him and his Grandma; like I felt that I fit there in their home. Garrett then kept bringing me things to show me from his mission and telling me stories. It was so cute and attractive how he wanted to show me all those things and share his stories with me. By this time in the night, it was pretty late. We sat together for a little bit longer until we both felt that we needed to get to bed. 

Ok... now for the fun part: He pulled up to the curb behind my building where he always picked up and dropped me off. He got out of the car to give me a hug. It was one of those lingering hugs! I had had those before and they usually meant the guy was thinking about whether or not to kiss you/how he was going to try to kiss you. I was so excited!! I had a thought that I wanted to be cute and beat him to it though. My way of beating him in a "competition". So when we pulled back we were still holding each others hands and swinging them a little bit when I started to ask him, confidently, "So I wondering if it would be ok if I..." I didn't even finish my question before he quietly/jokingly said, "no." I thought he was saying that because he didn't want to get me sick (forgot to say that he had been feeling a little sick that day). I started to tell him that I didn't mind that at all when he jumped in and told me about "the rule". When he was in high school he made a rule for himself not to kiss a girl until she really meant something to him. So..... my first feeling was, "wow, that's a cool rule! Way to be, Garrett." The second feeling was a good dose of denial. Well. Hadn't felt it like that before! I hadn't ever asked a guy if I could kiss him before!! I was so embarrassed and couldn't quite believe that I had just done that. Geez! As I was floundering to try and act not-embarrassed, Garrett said sorry and sounded like he meant it. We hugged and I went inside my building in kind of a haze.

My roommates were ready and waiting to hear all about the date. I couldn't get over what had just happened!! They got more and more impatient to hear my story as I kept pausing and burying my face in my hands or laughing. But then I stopped my story when I got a text from Garrett. Oh man. I didn't want to read it. He apologized again for blowing me off but he told that that night had been a good start to eventually him feeling that he could kiss me. So then meaning that I could eventually, one day, mean something to him. That made me feel better! Not completely... but hey, at least there was hope!

The next weeks were fun and frustrating at the same time. I stuck to just being patient and waiting for Garrett to make the move to kiss me. I decided to just enjoy our time hanging out and the rest would come in time. And indeed it did. Indeed it did...