By Laurie Frost
Imagine being duct-taped to a light pole about five feet in the air, a road cone perched on your head, a live goldfish in a baggie around your neck and a big ?YES? pasted on your chest.
No, it?s not a nightmare brought on by that midnight pizza. It?s just a creative ?answering-your-Homecoming-date? scheme, sprung from the fertile mind of Jonnie Litster.
?I used to just sing songs to girls to answer them,? Litster said. ?But that got boring.?
These and other creative asking methods are running wild in the dorms and among BYU students everywhere, seeming to pull from the western United States tradition of creative dating.
Kortni Seegmiller had asked Litster to a girl?s choice dance in their hometown of Henderson, Nev. Seegmiller wrote him a spoof-book of their future life together, from the dance all the way up to eternal marriage and a few kids.
Litster decided that one creative turn deserves another, and taped himself to a light pole outside her house. Unfortunately, the plan backfired.
?I got home a half-hour late,? Seegmiller said, grinning. ?So he was hanging up there waiting for me.?
As Homecoming draws near, BYU freshman are coming up with other crazy, clever ideas to pop the question.
Freshman Isaac Calbert dug deep for a fresh idea and decided on something foundational ? a couple of rocks.
He sneaked to a girl?s apartment and put two rocks next to the door, one labeled ?yes? and one labeled ?no,? and left a sign asking her to return the one with her answer on it. However, there was a hitch.
?The ?yes? rock was a pebble,? Calbert said, ?and the ?no? rock was a boulder.?
However, BYU students don?t have to ask a date to Homecoming with some extravagant show. Meegan Small, a freshman from Boston, finds creative date-asking an embarrassing concept.
?I think it?s because we don?t ask creatively where I?m from,? Small said.
Though she admits she?s not used to the creative date-asking, Small said she thinks the whole show of balloons and M&Ms is just a front for date-asking fear.
?I think people can hide behind ?this huge show because they can?t just come out with it,? Small said.
Luckily, she?s going to Homecoming with Andrew Veenstra from upstate New York, who hates the roses-and-confetti approach as much as she does.
However, Veenstra did ask Small creatively, though he didn?t duct-tape himself to anything.
It was the first week of school, on Y mountain, at about 4 a.m. when he asked her to Homecoming.
?Look, you hate creative things, and I hate creative things,? he said, ?so do you want to go to Homecoming with me??
Small said yes.
?I like face-to-face personal communication,? Small said. ?So if you?re gonna ask me, be a man about it and just be like, ?Hey, go to the dance with me.??
Some creative asking ideas:
- Write the question on a slip of paper, wrap it tightly in Saran wrap and mix it in a homemade shake.
- Shave ?Homecoming?? in your head and unveil it in her presence. Make sure someone videotapes it.
- Make a scavenger hunt.
- Compose a song and sing it to them outside their window.
- Carve it in a pumpkin.
- Fill a kiddie pool with oatmeal and wrap the waterproofed question around a raisin.
- Spell it out in green eggs and ham.
- Stage a pie-eating contest with the question baked inside.