Guest Blogger #19
At 28 years and a few months, I guess you could call Tom Tuerff one of my oldest friends, although considering we haven't seen each other since the late 70s we probably have some catching up to do. Still, we've kept in touch lately.
I met Tom in college in 1977, when we were doing a play together. We have another connection, too, but that's his story.
Tom works in the advertising biz in the Phoenix area, and also has a nice following as a musician. He blogs at Tom Tuerff's Glob -- er, blog, or something.
The Girl Next Door
By Tom Tuerff
When Chuck Sigars asked me to be a guest blogger, I was more than happy to say yes.
You see, while I don’t think the two of us have laid eyes on the other in over 25 years, we’ve stayed in touch through mutual pals and the wonder that is e-mail.
I met Chuck when we were freshmen in college at Northern Arizona University. We were members of a fairly small breed of animal: male heterosexuals in the theater department.
I quickly discovered that we had other things in common, especially a mutual appreciation for intelligent standup comedians, such as George Carlin and especially Robert Klein.
And by the time our sophomore year had ended, we had something else in common: a girl.
(Not at the same time, mind you. Chuck and I weren’t THAT close.)
Let’s call her Lori, because that was her name.
I met Lori purely by chance. I had purchased a ticket to see a play that Chuck had been cast in, “The Birthday Party” by Harold Pinter. (If you’re not familiar with this play, find it and read it. You STILL won’t be familiar with it.)
My ticket plopped me down next to an absolutely stunning vision: a very pretty blonde girl about my age who was instantly making me nervous just because she was so pretty.
(How pretty? More on that later.)
She was also very friendly. She immediately introduced herself. “I’ve never been to a college play before,” she said.
Oh really? I asked her why she picked this one.
“Well, I know one of the guys in the cast.”
I told Lori that I was involved big time in the theater department as well, and knew everybody. “So who do you know?” I asked.
“Chuck Sigars! We went to high school together and we used to date!”
Well this was a wonderful thing to find out! She’s still on good terms with a guy I’m good friends with, and judging from the fact that she and I BOTH came to the play alone, she’s available.
We chatted some more and I realized fairly quickly that I REALLY liked this girl.
After the play, I took her backstage and Chuck saw us immediately.
“I didn’t know you guys knew each other!” Chuck said. We set him straight by explaining the happenstance of our seating arrangement. Then we talked a bit more and Chuck excused himself to change out of his play costume.
Being the nice guy I am and wanting to hang with this lovely woman as long as possible, I walked Lori back to her dorm. I’m sure we did the “nice to meet you’s” and “See you again’s.”
And we did see each other again.
Constantly.
You know how before you know someone, you might pass them on the way to work/class/whatever a thousand times and not notice it, but once you do meet them, you realize you’ve been “seeing” them for months?
Such was the case with Lori and me. That semester we were suddenly bumping into each other all over campus. I would pass her three or four times a day as we made our way to classes.
We ate dinner at about the same time every weekday night. She would come over and eat with me.
This was promising. I was a really shy guy for the first half of college, and here was this vision of Venus coming over to talk to me, laugh at my jokes, etc. For the first time since I got to college, here was a girl I wanted to see naked who actually seemed to be leaning in that direction…
…except that she wasn’t. I would ask her out and she would come up with odd excuses. Not “I have to wash my hair” type stuff but clearly something was bugging her and I was too insecure to ask. I figured it was something about me, since I had this incredible ability to scare off high school girlfriends just by being too nice. (I never understood that; still don’t.)
Undaunted, I carried on with my Lori-pursuing activities into the second part of sophomore year.
The truth slapped me in the face one Sunday afternoon. I was in my dorm, watching Walter Payton’s Bears take it to the New York Giants, when halftime rolled along right about noon. I decided to use that time to grab lunch in the cafeteria. No sooner did I sit down when I heard a familiar voice:
“Tom! Come eat with us!”
It was Lori, dressed to the nines for church, with a bunch of her church friends. I picked up my lunch and headed to her table. I set my lunch down and that was when I noticed them.
Next to their food. On top of their Bibles.
Their Books of Mormon.
That’s why she wouldn’t go out with me – there was no point. Hell, that's why she wasn't dating CHUCK anymore!
I could feel myself deflating. I could feel my personality leaking all over the floor. I tried making small talk with these people but they all (except for Lori) had about as much personality as a geoduck.
I couldn’t think. It was all hitting me at once. Lori was dating for the big catch. He had to be Mormon. I wasn’t. Wasn’t ever gonna be. We wouldn’t be dating. I wouldn’t be seeing her naked. And it dawned on me that if it turns out the Mormons ARE right, I won’t be seeing her naked in the next life, either.
Luckily, my dorm was a straight line from the cafeteria because I don’t think I could have found it otherwise.
Oddly enough, I don’t think after that day that I ever saw Lori again. I don’t think I tried to avoid her; it wasn’t entirely the end of the world. Just a good hard slap.
I imagine she’s a model Mormon wife now with three billion kids and a squeaky-clean husband. But 25 years later I still think about her, ‘cause boy, was she pretty.
Oh yeah, I was going to explain HOW pretty. The following summer I was at a party with other Phoenix-area NAU-ers, many of whom had attended high school with Chuck and Lori. Amidst the talk about women that normally flows when you’ve all had too many beers, I mentioned Lori’s name to her fellow alumni.
One guy let out a painful wail then said, “She was SO BEAUTIFUL!”
And with that, he began to cry. Big, drunken sobs that seemed to say that he, too, had been taken by this vision, this Venus, this unhave-able must-have.
The guys who didn’t know Lori could only wonder.
8:20:23 AM 
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