Expounding upon one of the “did you knows” from yesterday’s post, here is a really, really, really long post (mainly for me, because I didn’t write in a journal back then and I definitely want these stories somewhere).

Justin, I wouldn’t suggest that you make this the time you decide to actually read my longs posts…in fact, you can skip this one altogether (no need to even skim it), because I’m pretty sure you don’t want to read about your sister’s adventures in boys.

To the rest of you…please don’t judge me. I am, after all, only a human (and not the best one, at that).

Once upon a time there was a girl named Chloe who liked to shop online. Her favorite thing to shop for? Boys. No, not to purchase things for them, but for the boys themselves. She spent most of her time window shopping, but occasionally, something (or someone, rather) would reach out to her (literally, like, he’d email or IM or something) and she would toy with the idea of purchasing.

The first purchase she considered was a very nice guy named Scott (she thinks…she can’t remember for sure). He lived in Kentucky (he wasn’t originally from there…he was an import, which was the only reason she could put the boy in her basket in the first place*) and was getting a masters degree in sports education. She did some great flirting and managed to convince him that he wanted to meet her. The thing was, she wasn’t totally sold on him. While she loved the idea of him, she wasn’t sure she even liked him. I mean, where would this ever go?

First, there were the logistics. Then there was the fact that he was totally into sports (like watching them) and that would never, ever work for her. She comes from a family of sport participants, as opposed to sport observers. There’s no way that would ever work. Not only that, but he was a challenge. She actually had to work to impress him. So, even though she knew this wasn’t going to work out, she was super immature and very selfish, so she kept him in her shopping cart, all the while continuing to peruse the virtual shelves of available (or so they said) men.

Well, Scott really wanted to meet her, so he planned to come to make a little detour through the Phoenix area, using a football game as an excuse. Chloe was stuck. Whatever was she going to do? I mean, she didn’t really want to meet him. Or maybe she did, but she didn’t want to break his heart. She’s selfish, but not completely cruel. They made plans and were going to meet, but she was still shopping, and that’s when Brett** came along. He caught her eye. And he was both cheaper and closer.

And that’s when she did what any selfish, immature shopper does. She set Scott back on the shelf…but she waited until they were in line at the cash wrap to do it; he was already in Phoenix before she told him she wasn’t coming…yes, yes, not so nice.

Brett was fantastically obsessed with Chloe. A shameless flirt and the total rebel every girl wants to be with in high school. Sadly, this happened long after high school. He was totally into the outdoors, loved hip hop (the old school stuff), and was good looking, fun, and social, and (as she would discover later) the boy’s calves were absolutely amazing (he had these two huge tattoos on the back of them that were incredibly hot). He was also virtually unemployed, uneducated, and going nowhere fast. Perhaps it was the safety of knowing that this was going no where. Maybe it was the discount price. In any case, she decided Brett was worth buying.

The thing with buying cheap stuff is that it is often much more disappointing than paying a lot for something that is actually worth a lot. Yes, Brett came cheap, but there was a reason for it. And when it was Brett that ended up rejecting Chloe, she became a crazy person. You know the people who spend $50 to fix a $30 toaster. That was Chloe. There was no way this relationship was going to work, but he was not supposed to reject her. It was supposed to be the other way around. I mean, he was cool, in the sense that every rebellious teenager in high school is cool, but she was the one with a job…and a house…and a car, while he had none of these things and was, at that moment, living on his sister’s couch at the age of 31.

And that was the end of Brett. She did get some of her money back. I mean, he did help paint a few bedrooms in her house, and take her to dinner a few times, and to movies.

So, at this point, she was ready to stop shopping online. Chloe started to realize that there were a lot of unknowns when it came to Internet shopping. She toyed with the idea of actually trying to shop in a real store, where she could actually see the boys before buying them. And just as she was about to stop frequenting the virtual stores, Canada*** happened.

Canada was hilarious. He made her laugh. On top of that, he had a job. Yes, a real job. And he played the guitar. (People sometimes call Chloe picky, but it’s simply not true.) And, she loved the idea of Canada because he was, well, in Canada. Totally safe. A perfect way to transition out of online shopping. Put something in your cart that you know you will never actually buy, but something so thoroughly enthralling that you stop shopping, and are content to just know that it’s in your cart.

Chloe even told her sister about Canada (and Chloe never tells any of her siblings about these types of things…or anyone else for that matter). Her sister and brother-in-law teased her relentlessly. She was always on the phone with this Canadian she had never met. Well, as is wont to happen in these types of stories (the stories where one party isn’t looking for love), she started to actually like this guy (the kind of like that made her stomach do flip flops when he called). While Chloe was all for putting things in her shopping cart that she can’t afford, she also knew that she could not get attached to said things. She was starting to get attached to this thing…and he was one expensive thing. Trips to Canada are not cheap.

Finally, she realized that she needed to meet this boy. She wanted to take a test drive before she actually made the purchase. (Get your mind out of the gutter…this is just an analogy). They came up with a plan…a very ridiculous plan. They agreed to meet halfway…in Spokane. That meant a plane ticket for Chloe and a 13-hour drive for Canada. All to spend less than 24-hours together.

A quick side note…Chloe was very, very, very stupid to fly to Spokane (a city where she didn’t know anyone) to meet a complete stranger who picked her up in his car and could have very easily been a serial killer. She obviously knew she was stupid because she didn’t tell anyone in her family until she was on her way back to Phoenix. Okay, she did tell one friend (so that the cops would know where to search when she didn’t come back). Still, very, very, very stupid.

So, Chloe met Canada at the Spokane airport. They went to dinner at Outback and then back to his hotel room (read the side note again, if you must), where they proceeded to make out (yes, only make out, she swears) for most of the night. The next day, they got ready (pretend, if it makes you feel better, that she checked into her own hotel room) and proceeded to be the most disgustingly, publicly affectionate couple you have ever seen in your life as they wandered through the river park, and stopped to shop (real shopping…in real stores), and parked at some overlook (she’s sure the view was nice).

Did I mention that this also happened to be the first time Chloe had ever made out in her life? No? Apparently, she was feeling the need to make up for twenty-some years of not kissing (no…she’s not going to disclose her actual age on the Internet, so just deal with it).

Twenty hours after meeting him, she waved goodbye to Canada and called her friend (the one who knew where she was) to tell her that she was both alive and still a “good girl”. Then she called her sister and asked her to guess where she had been the day before. It was a fun conversation.

After arriving back in Phoenix, she kept Canada around for a while, but without an actual delivery date, she couldn’t bring herself to buy him. So she put him back on the shelf and decided that he was the best she could ever hope for when it came to virtual shopping for boys. She closed her online account…for about three months.

But that’s another story for another post.

If you want to read about the last (as in final) time I got online to shop for boys, you can click here.

*To all of you haters out there who are hating on me for implying that I wouldn’t date someone originally from Kentucky, I would. I just put that in there to make the story better.
**Name has been changed out of courtesy for the boy…even though I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember my name at this point, so it really doesn’t matter.
***While there is a trend going on right now to name children after cities or countries (a trend I think is uber stupid), Canada was not this boy’s actual name, but I do like to nickname boys the place they are from, and so a nickname was born. Even in real life I don’t like to use boys’ real names when talking about them. Ever.