The First Date

    Friday night. Friday night in America, the first Friday night of 2025.

   Somewhere (or possibly, everywhere) in this great big country there are kids, high school kids, going to a high school football game. They are enjoying cheering on their home team, they are enjoying the company of their friends and possibly their family too.

   Or maybe they are going to the movies, or meeting up at a pizza joint.

   Whatever the case may be, there is something that is absolutely certain.

   Some of those kids will be on dates, first dates, with the either the first person who they were ever asked out by, or with the first person they ever asked out.

   And they are seriously, deliriously, happy.

   They don't know it yet, but eventually they will figure out that the very act of being on a date, a first date specifically (whether as the inviter or the invitee), has set them down a path that could possibly lead them on the most wonderful of adventures, or the most dire.

   So buckle up kiddoes, the ride is a wild one at times, and will both thrill and disappoint you.

   Sometimes both at the same time.