Mama Lai and My First Date

Throughout high school I never dated and it was disappointing to Mama Lai that there wasn't a line of suitors knocking on her daughter's door.  This is the length my mother will go to get her daughter her first date.  

 

When I was seventeen I started e-mail and instant message correspondence with someone in Canada that I met in an AOL chatroom.   He became such an integral part of my life that I talked about him like I would talk about classmates in high school. 

I grew up in California and had never been out of the country.  For my high school graduation/18th birthday present Mama Lai engineered a Chinese tour of the East Coast that happened to include a stop in Canada.  Without me knowing Mama Lai and my family had corresponded with the Canadian for him to take me out on a date.  Mama Lai even secretly packed me make up, perfume, and a separate outfit for the “date”. 

Canadian AOL guy showed up in a sports car with roses and took me on the most elaborate date I've ever been on in my life. Mama Lai met him for all of five minutes before he whisked me away, in a foreign country, with no cellphones, no itinerary.  Later on when I asked her how she could let her daughter go away with a stranger, she responded:

"I'm good judge of character.  He wouldn't dare do anything to my daughter."