Not only do I love him, I love his car!

I'm gonna tell y'all a little story from my teenage years. I was 16. I didn't have a boyfriend. It was a crisp, fall evening, and I was sitting in the bleachers of a rival school's football field watching that school's homecoming game. My friend Jennifer was with me. I was telling Jennifer how there was this guy at church that I had a crush on. He was in college and he was funny, handsome, a Christian, and just awesome. I told Jennifer I wasn't sure if I should try to date him because of our age difference.

A few minutes later as I was staring vaguely off and pretending to understand the football game, Jennifer elbowed me and said, "Sarah, check out the hunk with the mustache!" I said, "Where?" She looked in the direction of the bleacher steps and pointed right at...MY CRUSH! It was him in the flesh. I said, "Jennifer! That's the guy I was just telling you about from church!" She said, "Sarah, GO FOR IT!"

After said hunk...let's call him Stock Tremor...seated himself, as well as a girl I knew from school and church, a few rows in front of us, he spotted me. He struck up a conversation, and Jennifer couldn't stop nudging me and giggling. The girl with him...let's call her Susie...kept trying to pull his attention back to the game...and to her...but it was no use. Stock and I were locked in a hopeless, non-stop, flirtatious chit-chat.

I learned that Stock had just driven a member of the school's homecoming court around the football field in his mom's shiny red '78 Corvette. It was a gorgeous specimen of a car with only a few hundred miles on the odometer. Stock's mom rarely drove it, but she agreed to donate its services for tonight's worthy proceedings.

During halftime, Susie, all bubbly and happy-looking, insisted that I accompany her to the restroom. While we were there, she started talking about how in love Stock and she were and how they had spent "every night this week together." Her speech convinced me that Stock really wasn't that interested in me. He was in love with Susie.

Later, I learned that Stock really had spent almost every night with Susie that week. He had come over to watch Monday Night Football with her brother on Monday, accepted an invitation to dinner with the family from Susie's mom on Wednesday, and led a Bible study at her house on Thursday. But until I realized the context of these numerous visits, I was distraught.

After the game, Jennifer's parents picked her up, and I walked to my car. By "my car" I mean my dad's little white Honda. It was one of the first times I had been allowed to drive somewhere alone at night. I put the keys in the ignition and tried to start her up. She wouldn't turn over. I gave it a few more attempts, but then gave up and decided to call my dad. By "call my dad," I do not mean that I pulled out my cell phone. I exited the vehicle and walked across the parking lot toward a thing called a "phone booth."

Who should I encounter on my way to the phone booth but Stock and totally-smitten Susie. Just when she thought she had him to herself, he asked me where I was going, and I told him about my car trouble. He said, "Let me give it a try! Susie, here are the keys to the Corvette...can you go get it?"

You should understand that Stock NEVER let other people drive his mother's Corvette.

Susie smelled a rat, and she grabbed the keys and me. "Come with me to get the car!"

While Susie and I frolicked across the gravel lot, she looked me straight in the eye and said, "Not only do I love him, I love his car!"

Gag.

After we pulled up in his Mom's Corvette, Stock emerged from my Honda sporting a drop-dead gorgeous smile, and I about died. He had done some magic on my car and gotten it running for me. Wow. What a guy. He made sure I was safely on my way before releasing me from his dreamy, hunky gaze.

I drove home with the distinct impression that Stock was questioning his "love" for Susie.