Palm Springs has actually been a frequent destination since I was little. Living in Long Beach, my family could be by the pool in just a little over two hours. It’s funny how many details of those trips suddenly came to mind this past weekend–little details I hadn’t thought about in years! There was the time my girlfriend Emy and her family came with us and there was a huge earthquake that sent everyone fleeing in bikinis. The time I drove my mom and I in my parents’ Mercedes and we spun out on Hwy 60. The time I snuck into the Spa bathroom to borrow a magazine, and saw Kate Moss on one of her first covers: Seventeenmagazine. The time my high school girlfriends and I realized (first with excitement and then disappointment) that we were the only girls at our hotel. And the time Aron and I first shared a date shake out at Hadley Fruit Farm.
I had all but forgotten about another first: I sort of had my first date in Palm Springs! My parents let me go to lunch with a boy I had met by the pool; we walked downtown to Hamburger Hamlet in the blazing sun. I remember that I wanted some money so that I could offer to split the bill and my parents gave me $5. (And no, I’m not that old, so this wasn’t very much money back then either.) I think dad–being the old-fashioned guy that he is–thought the boy should really pay.
I scanned the menu anxiously and saw that I could only afford the French onion soup. And so I ordered French onion soup and a glass of water. As if this weren’t already the most ridiculous thing to get on even a sort-of-date (a bowl full of stinky onions with stringy cheese), this was in the summer! In the desert!
Guess what? He ordered the same thing. (And paid.)
What’s your first date story? How old were you?
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