The Game of Perfection and how it led to sneaking out ; A crazy late night, 8th grade adventure.
This one time my friend and I were both trying to hook up with this one girl. We were little kids, literally in the 8th grade. We didn’t drive, or have bike available. Given that this was the suburbs , distances were vast in between houses. This particular lady lived 4 miles and change for me.
My friend was sleeping over at my house that night. After my parents went to sleep , he suggested we walk over to that lady’s house. I was not into the idea, despite being interested in the lady. First of all the mission felt futile. The distance was staggering. We (I) put the idea to rest for a brief moment.
We had been playing this game called Perfection, a game where you have to fit shapes into precise cut outs before the timer pops out all the shapes. It was a very frustrating game and we’d been failing at it.
My friend then says. If I beat the game this next round we will go to Emily’s house (fake name). Thinking that this was my out, I agreed. I’d alternated turns with my friend for about 15 minutes and nobody had won a round .
Of course, he instantly nailed it. He pumped his fists. Wow ok. Instantly I realized that it was our destiny to walk to this lady’s house.
It was so far. We departed late in the night and didn’t arrive to her house til 4:30. We called her repeatedly. She was a 15 year old girl at the time, and we were 14. None of us had any business socializing at this house. We called her cell phone relentlessly. At this time phones were dumb phones. I remember the flip phone model I was using when I repeatedly called and texted.
Eventually, she came out for about 1 minute to appease us. We left feeling incredibly stupid. We walked a little bit further end came to a church that was basically adjacent to her house. We laid down on the grass and slept for a few minutes . Then started to venture back. By this time it was daylight. After walking a couple more miles we passed our towns staple supermarket.
Donuts! My friend remarked. Yes, they had the best donuts. This was a great idea. We walk to the back of the establishment and we see where they are baking donuts. This is seen through the back parking lot and is in no way presented to the typical customer. The guys baking looked at us with a “what are you doing here, we’re not open and you’re staring into the back kitchen” kinda look.
“Donuts! “ My friend said, “we’re not ope, they communicate to us .
We then Go to the front of the grocery store. The automatic sliding door is locked. However, we can see some workers scattered throughout the store preparing for opening. It’s very early still. One employee walks to the automatic sliding door and looks at me and my friend. I can’t imagine what we must have looked like .
Anyways, she starts to say, we’re closed. Not missing a beat.. I say “We do the cheese here” . I have filmed myself below this gesture, exactly as I had.
As though “open sesame” had been uttered, she immediately grants us access and solidified “we do the cheese here” as an iconic phrase and gesture . We’re now in the closed supermarket. We walk around for a second and some guy working goes, “what the hell are you doing here!?”.
“We wanted Donuts.” My friend replies.
“Get the hell outta here we are closed .”
We then leave the store, a couple of miles away from our town. It’s about 530-6 am. We decided to stop a car snd see if they’ll drive us down the roads. We stop a car and it’s two of our friends! 2 young 13-14 year old girls were being driven back from the city.
They were being driven by two older teenagers driving an SUV. They’d returned from the city.
My friend and I were absolutely floored. At the sheer serendipity of it all. At the magnitude of what we were witnessing.
“Dave!? Sherif?” What are you doing out here?
I don’t remember what we said. But I don’t think it was, “Trying to hook up with Emily in the middle of an eight mile round trip walk initiated by a well executed round of Hasbro’s gaming classic perfection.”
I was initially thrilled that we stopped a car that had our friends in it. Surely we would be receiving a ride from these nice gentlemen driving underage girls at 530 am right!? wrong! Obviously, they sped of with techno music blaring.
When we arrived at home my dad was just waking up. You guys are awake already? He said. Yeah but we’re going to sleep. I replied, we went downstairs to the basement, unfolded the sofa bed, and entered a deep well-earned slumber.
This night didn’t end up the way we planned, but I’ll never forget it. And all of this happened because of a well played round Perfection!