Christmas Gift Exchange

When I was 16, I started working at Hardee’s.  My first year there, someone suggested that it would be fun to do a Christmas gift exchange with all of the employees.  We had a little get together at the restaurant a few days before Christmas.  One of the supervisors, Sandy, thought it would be funny if her gift was one of those R-rated decks of playing cards where there was a semi-naked (or naked) lady on each card.  If she was hoping to embarrass someone, she hit the jackpot when I picked her gift.

I was the most socially awkward nerdy person there, and everyone got a big kick out of it when I opened up the present.  To make matters worse, sitting across from me in the booth was the girl I had a huge crush on, along with her cigarette smoking, baseball playing, cool car driving, Tony Danza lookalike boyfriend, Vernon.  They were all having a big laugh at my expense.  (For the record, I did get the last laugh on Vernon.  6 years later, his ex-girlfriend and I got married.)

When I got home that night, I hid the cards under the seat of my dad’s station wagon that I was driving.  When mom asked, I made up some reason for not getting a present in the exchange.  I didn’t feel like recounting, and adding to, the embarrassment of the evening.  Later that night, after mom went to work, I brought the cards in to look at them.  I took the time to put all of the cards in order, ranking them from the one that I would least like to have as a girlfriend (Starr) to the one that I would most like to have as a girlfriend (Heather).  Then I put them back in the box and hid them in my closet.
Years later, when visiting my folks, I went down to my old room in the basement and found the cards, still tucked away in the closet, along with three SI swimsuit issues and a Penthouse that I had pulled from a burn barrel behind the gas station.  The girls were still in the same order, and my tastes hadn't changed a bit.