At the time of this tale I was involved with a girl older than myself. Looking back on it now, I probably adored this girl more than the rest because she was a grade above me, and also because it was my first relationship in highschool. I was with this girl for a stretch before the summer, held those feelings while she ignored me during the summer, and made my way back to her once school started again. It was during this second round that I was so willing to make it work, I forced my brother to drive me to her house at 7 on a week night.
"My mom won't be home until nine" she had told me. So I just had to leave before then, to make sure her mom didn't know I was over. Well an hour into our hanging out, her sparatic attitude influenced the decision that she had to go to her dads house. I told her that's a bad idea, "I can only stay for another hour" I argued but "He's already on his way" she said. And so her dad picked her up at 8:00. I couldn't go with her though, her dad lived out in Timbuktu and it wasn't worth the drive. My plan was this: "I'll just sit and watch TV until my brother can get me at 8:45". She oddly agreed and I frustratedly watched her drive away with her dad. I was left alone in the living room by the front door, eagerly waiting for my brother to rescue me.
8:15 and in walks her mom with the groceries. You've got to be kidding me! She sees me, says hello, I nervously replied with "Uh, hi." Then she continued into the kitchen to unpack the groceries without another word.
Now I'm sweating. I'm texting my brother ferociously: "Bro, come get me!" "Her moms here!" "Bro bro bro!"
He doesn't reply because he's busy until 8:45. Unable to bear the awkward stress of the situation, I quickly came up with the brilliant plan to leave. Just leave. Not five minutes had passed and I now stood at the door. "My brother's here, thanks for having me," I yelled awkwardly to her in the other room. I put my shoes on and walked out the door. Now I had an even more brilliant plan backed by the rationale of not wanting them (the mom and the younger sister) to see me out on their street: I'll run. I started running -- a quick sprint at first and then I slowed to a light jog. First I was thinking that I just wanted to be out of sight of the front window but then when I started running, I figured I could jog all the way home thinking it's not that far. Wearing casual leather shoes and a collared T, I made my way to the main road and kept my pace for a long stretch.
As I approached the intersection for another side road not even a kilometre up the larger street, a red car pulled in front of me with the window down and my mom's voice said "What are you doing? Get in the car." Except my family didn't have our red Camry anymore...
And then the dots connected: that's her mom's red Charger, and her mom's voice yelling at me.
Without hesitation, I slowed to a walk, grabbed the door handle and got in the backseat. There was no way out of this terrible situation so I just faced it head on. When I sat down in the backseat the mom started driving right away. I couldn't imagine what she was thinking. She asked me "Why were you running, you goof?" And I made the on the spot lie that I was just jogging up to where my brother was going to get me on the next corner. She drove me a couple blocks with the younger sister in the passenger seat and even though I'm pretty sure she believed my cover story, it's still safe to say it was some of the most awkward minutes of my life. They told me they were heading to Tim Horton's... Just my luck.
Anyways they dropped me off at my corner and as soon as they drove away, I continued my gaunt home to be later picked up by my brother along the way.
That was the end of round two with the older woman and also the last time I saw the mother.
You're welcome,
B.F. Greenough, aka,
Chief Hanky, The Jogging Juvenile
