Sit right back, and you’ll hear a tale. A tale of an older woman and a slightly younger man. A tale of a woman with kids and a young adult who acts like a kid but has the sex drive of a post-pubescent mastodon. A tale that could never happen. Or could it? A tale of my dream date with …

CAROL CARTWRIGHT!

DISCLAIMER: The events depicted in this column are disgusting. They never actually happened, though, and probably won’t happen anytime in the future. Unless, of course, they do.

I would start the evening off by going to Carol’s house. Her husband would probably be there, but I would say, “Back off, Buddy! I saw her first!” It would be funny because it would be completely untrue.

Then, if he tried to stop me I would be all like, “Go to bed, old man!” and he would start to cry.

Then Carol and I would hop into the old twisted wagon (that’s the adorable nickname I have for my ’92 Corrola), and I would inquire about what exactly it was she wanted to do.

I would say, “There’s a presentation of The Vagina Monologues going on. (All the proceeds go to a battered women’s shelter, and former columnist Dave Weiss told me he would give me a dollar if I mentioned it in print!)

“Hmmmm…” she would respond. Then, mustering all of my will power to prevent myself from making a joke about a talking vagina, I would tell her what I really wanted to do.

“I want to go to Chuck E. Cheese, Carol Cartwright. With you.”

She would smile and nod. We would go. Our lives would never be the same.

I would give her the free token that I have. She would use it on the whack-a-mole machine. We would watch the decaying animatronic mascot characters wobble mechanically back and forth to “Wang Chung.” I would rack up five million tickets playing the children’s basketball free throw game. Then I’d exchange them at the prize station for a tiny plastic orange spider ring that probably cost negative 25 cents to manufacture. I would propose marriage to her with it.

She would say, “Of course I’ll marry you! Even though I have a husband!” Then we would make out hardcore in the ball pit.

I imagine the air would smell a little sweeter to me after I made out with Carol Cartwright in a tub full of colorful plastic balls and small-child excrement.

I would drive her home beaming, knowing that the most powerful woman in Kent, maybe the most powerful woman in the world other than Wonder Woman, had agreed to marry someone who has no idea how to operate a dishwasher. Knowing that that someone was me.

I would think about what this meant for me. The power I would have. How I could instantly have all my D minus minuses changed into low Cs or higher (if there are higher grades than that). How I could have two gigantic statues of myself high-five-ing each other erected on top of the Student Center. How I could have teachers I didn’t like imprisoned! How I could … then I would stop myself, knowing that the power I would then have meant nothing compared to the power Carol has. The one that makes my heart melt every time she smiles.

Nick Moose is a senior-being-awesome major and a humor columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Reach him at [email protected].