"Who's playing footsie vis me?" − 24 December, 1991

So I'm in high school and I'm dating this really cool girl Karin. Karin is a tennis player. She's tall, lean, blond and smarter than me. She plays piano. She water-skis. She's does track and model UN and whatever else she can fit in during the day. She comes from the right side of the tracks too. Her dad is the President of some building cooling systems company and flies all around the world dealing his company's wares. Liebert, was the name of the company I think. I'm really not sure what her mother did, but I think she worked; if she didn't then she worked hard at looking busy. Like Karin, she was always up to something.

I used to spend a great deal of time at the Boerger's house and they always made me feel welcome. I had a knack for conversation and loved to stand in the kitchen and shoot the shit with them. It seems to me we were always in the kitchen talking.

So I was getting used to luxury when at her parents request, Karin invited me over to Christmas dinner for a double-date with her parents. Karin has an older sister, but she's much older, so Karin was more or less an only child during the high school years I knew her. What's more Karin's older sister was not coming home for the holidays. Hence the invitation.

Now there are two things that the reader should know before I go into any detail about what ensued.

1. Karin's family was uber German. Very traditional in many ways. German from German, German. Not fake, we're American but have German in our distant past German.

2. The Boerger's never half-assed anything. I once watched Karin and her dad play a 5-set match of tennis with tiebreakers. Karin was up after three sets, but Karsten wouldn't quit and Karin wouldn't let gender determine who the winner was. She was going to Billie Jean King his ass once and for all. She won. And Karsten was as happy to lose in style to his daughter as any dad could be. Competitive to the end, yes. But an honorable dude.

3. The Boeger's knew that Karin and I were in love. We didn't know they knew. But in retrospect, I know they must have. Parents like ours are smart like that.

So that's the back story. Here's the rest. It's Christmas dinner, which the Germans celebrate on the 24th of December, not the 25th. The Boerger's have a nice blue spruce in the living room next to a table laid out with their finest dinnerware. The spruce has live candles burning on it and no other decorations, which is an proper old-school rendering of ye olde tannenbaum.

"Nice," I thought. "That can't be very safe."

I was dressed for a nice dinner. I think I wore a tie, but I can't quite remember. Mrs. Boerger made a multi-course meal of meats, veggies, grains, wine (yes, we got to drink wine with dinner) desserts and, finally, coffee. Conversation turned to art, music, and eventually philosophy. We had a lengthy conversation about why times flies when you're old, but when you're young every day seems to creep along.

During coffee I decided it was safe to undo the top button on my pants, untuck the shirt, and take off my shoes. It was a civilized dinner, but nothing I couldn't de-sophisticate with a few grunts and groans, which I am wont to do. At some point I decide it's also a brilliant idea to start sending Karin love signals over, across and under the table. The wink here. The diverted stare there. And then footsie. For a good minute or two I was giving Karin a run for her money underneath the table.

Over the table she was trying to keep her composure, I was sure, because under it was a foot wrestle. All of the sudden the action stopped and Karsten pushed his chair back looked under the table and then looked back up to the rest of us and says in his thick German accent: "Who's playing footsie vis me?"

I was mortified and from the look on my face Karin and her mother burst out laughing which Karsten and I would soon join with our own.