Worst date ever.

My youngest sister called this morning with some very exciting news. She's a freshman in high school and asked a guy to her Sadie Hawkins dance. She had all the bubbling enthusiasm you would expect of a 14 year-old who met "the CUTEST. BOY. EVER!" at the mall this weekend and subsequently got him to agree to attend this dance with her. It was nothing short of adorable. I was especially proud of her, as the first time she worked up the nerve to call and ask this guy, his buddy answered the phone, pretended to be his friend, and told my sister he wasn't sure about the dance. She was completely crestfallen. Then, my sister's crush called her back, apologized for his friend, and my sister had to ask all over again. Luckily, this time he said yes.

I couldn't tell her I had a similar experience in college. It was my first sorority mixer, and I had to find a date. One of my friends suggested I ask her boyfriend's friend, Jeff. So I called him, having never met him, and his roommate answered. He talked to me for awhile, posing as Jeff, and was nothing short of a total dickhead. Then Jeff called me back, apologized, and said he would go to the party with me. At the time I was happy about this.

It turned out Jeff was an alcoholic. Of course I had no way of knowing this...nor would I until he joined AA two years later. But as this was my first college party, and he was a year older, I followed his lead on the booze consumption and was quickly blasted out of my mind. On the bus ride back to campus (as this party had been in a field somewhere because that's how they roll in mid-Missouri), I started to get sick and as my motor skills had been compromised, couldn't figure out how to get the school bus window down. (Admittedly, I struggle with those sober.) Anyway, I proceeded to just puke on myself as it seemed to be the only option at the time. As a sign of how drunk my date was, he didn't even hop up out of his seat, despite the fact he was now sitting next to Linda Blair. He just patted my back and asked if I was okay.

When we got back to campus, we all headed to the dorm. Me covered in barf, my date stumbling all over the place. When we got up to our rooms, I went to take a shower and change. Apparently while I was off doing this, my neighbor asked if anyone wanted some champagne. At this point, my horribly intoxicated date took the bottle, chugged the whole thing, then stumbled to the balcony and proceeded to pee off it, nearly missing another friend and her date as they walked in the dorm down below. Of course I knew nothing of any of this until I got out of the shower and my neighbor was yelling at me for my date drinking all her champagne. (Was later bitched out for the balcony-piss-near-miss.) I apologized to my neighbor and went back to my room only to find him passed out on my bed. I put on my pajamas, rolled him up against the wall, and crawled under the covers.

Around 3am I woke up feeling like I was sleeping under weights. Quickly I realized why. It turns out if you piss on a down comforter, it gets quite heavy. And that's exactly what was going on. I was sleeping under a blanket of piss, and thus, was covered in piss myself. I screamed, jumped out of bed (with Jeff sound asleep) and ran across to my neighbor's room and banged on the door. She opened it to find me hysterical.

"He pissed the bed!!! Oh my GOD, he totally just PISSED. THE. BED!!!"

My friend, in her drunken stupor, reminded me that another shower might be in order. I did so, and spent the rest of the night sleeping in my roommate's bed. (She'd been out of town, and I'd thought about sleeping in her bed initially, but didn't feel like I should since this was the beginning of the year and we weren't that close yet.)

The next morning I woke up, and he was staring at me clearly still wasted. I sent him home immediately, and then went about the mortifying task of having to call my parents and ask them to send me a new comforter.

A fantastic postscript to this story was last year, my friend was in a wedding and one of the other bridesmaids went to college with us, though we didn't know her. But she had the same - unusual - last name as Jeff. My friend asked this girl to repeat her last name, and when she did, my friend made a brief face, quickly explaining that she'd thought it sounded familiar, but she was thinking of a different last name.

Later that night, this bridesmaid got drunk and stumbled up to my friend. "Yes, I'm married to Jeff. And yes, I know he pissed on your friend. Everyone does. But he's been sober now for SIX years, and I'm VERY proud of him!"

I'm crossing my fingers my sister's dance isn't met with the same amount of drama. Though having a story that can trump anyone's worst-first-date story almost made the whole thing worth it.

Almost.