"THE" Story

Do you know someone that has a great story, and even though you've heard it a lot, you look for reasons to get them to tell it again? I am one of those people with the great story. Truly! Anytime there is a group of people together and there is someone there who hasn't heard "THE" story, I will be asked to tell it. Again. (I fear I've built it up too much and after you read it you'll think "Meh, that wasn't so great".)

Anyhoo...on with the story:

I grew up in a small town near Dallas. A small town with more churches than people. You remember the movie Footloose? That was like the city where I grew up. There was no alcohol sold in town, at all (no liquor stores and alcohol wasn't allowed to be served in restaurants) - no dancing, either. Ok, I will confess that I didn't give much thought to living in that town; it was home and all I knew - I had no idea the whole world didn't live like that. When I would see them talking about homecoming dances on a TV show, I thought it was just something Hollywood made up.

While in high school there was nothing for us teenagers to do on the weekend - therefore, we would hang out at the rodeo in our town. Yes, we didn't have much, but, by golly, we had a rodeo. While other teenage girls, in other parts of the country, were swooning over Shaun Cassidy and Andy Gibb, the teen girls in my town were daydreaming about marrying a bull rider (or bronc rider.) This is why we never sat to watch the rodeo. We hung out under the bleachers - saying hi whenever a cowboy would pass by us. Sometimes one would stop and chat with us giggling high school girls. THAT would make our night and we'd talk about it, in depth, for many days following.

Ok, now jump ahead to my senior year of college. I was going to school out of state, so any major holiday I would fly home to see my parents. I'd also get together with any of my friends who hadn't fled the city after graduation. On one particular visit home, my friends and I decided to head into the big city of Dallas and do some country dancing at the coolest club ever.

As soon as we got there, one of my girlfriends screams to me over the music that she's going to the restroom. I've never been big on the whole "we're chicks, thus we must potty together", so she went to the restroom while I headed toward the dance floor. As soon as I arrived near the floor, I was asked to dance. After checking out my requester, I opted to say no. He was old! He looked like he was, like, in his thirty's or something. He stood there just staring at me for a moment then he smiled a huge smile and asked me if my name was Kansas Girl. Whoa. I stared back at him trying to figure out if I knew him, but I had no idea.

My suitor asked me to dance again and promised while we danced he would tell me how he knew me. How could I say no to that? Before he explained, he asked me if I used to hang out at a rodeo when I was younger. Whoa again. Ok? Who the h*ll was this guy? Finally he tells me he used to be a bronc rider and would ride at the rodeo where I hung out a lot. He said he talked to me once, but I was too young for him. He swore when he met me that he'd never forget me, because I had the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen. Whoa times three.

I, of course, danced with only him for the rest of the night. We talked and talked. He bought me beer after beer. At 2am the club was closing and my wonderful new and suddenly dreamy friend said he very much wanted to see me again, if that would be ok with me. H*ll yes! I got a pen and a matchbook to give him my number. I was fixin to write my number when he says: "I have a confession - I've never seen you before in my life. When you came in, I heard your friend scream your name and I took a guess on the rodeo...it seems just about every girl that comes in here used to hang out there. But you do have very pretty eyes".

I wrote down a fake phone number and left.