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COLUMN SIX: Making the rounds

How tough could it be to find two suitable concert-goers? BY EMILY BOSS Special to the VOICE O ne day, more than a decade ago, I won four free tickets to a concert in Toronto.
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You want me to go where now? BIGSTOCK PHOTO

How tough could it be to find two suitable concert-goers?

BY EMILY BOSS Special to the VOICE

One day, more than a decade ago, I won four free tickets to a concert in Toronto. A friend of mine happily agreed to go with me, though because we were both single at the time there were still two tickets unused. But not if we could help it.

Ideally, we wanted to take good-looking guys that we could flirt with and get free drinks from. After failing to poach a couple of my brother’s friends—an effort he was none too pleased with—we started to get creative.

If we couldn’t go with good-looking people we knew, good-looking strangers naturally would be the next best thing. We had to go shopping in Hamilton that day, and figured we could kill two birds with one stone by offering the extra tickets to guys in the mall.

We expected there would be quite a lot to choose from; it wasn’t until we were ready to leave and still hadn’t seen any that we realized that at 2 PM on a Thursday, anyone worth taking to the show would probably be at work.

Quickly becoming desperate, we wrote our names and phone numbers on the extra tickets, so we’d be ready for a quick handoff in the event of an adjacent car in the Hamilton traffic carrying eligible—and attractive—men.

Still no luck. It seemed all attractive men aged 22-28 were indeed at their jobs.

As that fact sunk in, a new idea formed and I shared it excitedly with my friend.

“Why don’t we go to where they are? We can even pick their career this way. Let’s go to a fire station!”

She was on board and agreed it was a brilliant plan.

We thought our local fire station would be empty, save for the wise old Chief who would find us quirky and endearing and, most importantly, know two young firemen who would be glad to take us up on our offer. If things went really well, a double-wedding would not have been out of the question.

Since the fire station was within walking distance, we drove back to our apartment and prettied ourselves up a bit, excited by our plan. As we approached a station nearby, we saw that things weren’t going to be quite as we envisioned. There were 20 firemen, all outside together, washing the fire trucks.

So much for discretion.

We timidly walked on by, finding our courage waning. We hid out of sight around a corner and mentally regrouped. There was no denying that the odds were in our favour. The firemen were—for the most part—young guys, and there were some really good looking ones!

We doubled back with renewed commitment to our objective. On our approach, some of them stopped what they were doing, watching us as we walked straight up to the smallest group.

“Hi. We’d like to speak with the Fire Chief.” (No need to abandon the rest of our plan). The chief was at a conference that day, we were told, so we asked to speak to “the second-in-command”.

“Well that would be me,” said a man stepping forward. I felt myself turn five different shades of red as I recognized the man, who was not only my brother’s hockey coach, but also a longtime friend of my dad. Thankfully—and perhaps somewhat insultingly—he didn’t recognize me.

“We were wondering if we could speak to you…in private,” we said, adding that last part quickly, conscious of the watching eyes all around us.

“Uhh…okay…” The second-in-command looked very confused, but complied, bringing along another middle-aged fireman to keep things above board.

“So. What can we do for you ladies?” he asked us.

We awkwardly told them our reason for being there, that we were looking for a couple of upstanding, fun, attractive firemen to escort us to a free concert in Toronto. As we were explaining our mission, we saw their facial expressions slide slowly from ones of confusion to amusement.

“Wow. Well that sounds like a lot of fun,” the second to the second-in-command started. “I wish I were a young guy, I would definitely say yes! We have some single guys here, I’m sure we can find a couple for you.” His confidence was encouraging.

They left us and walked over to a group of five or so firemen, where they issued a blanket invitation on our behalf. Not quite the subtle move we were hoping for. It was too late to walk away at that point though, so we stood there, growing more embarrassed by the second, watching from a distance as our situation was explained.

The firemen leaned in at first, listening curiously. And then… they broke out into laughter. We saw arms go up and heads shaking as they howled even louder.

“Uh-oh.” I said, as it finally struck us that this wasn’t as brilliant an idea as we’d thought.

At this point there were several other small groups of firefighters unaware of what was going on. Upon hearing the commotion, a few went over to the group to find out what was so funny. As it was explained to them, they too joined in the laughter and we sadly conceded they probably weren’t interested either.

The second-in-command and his accomplice came back slowly, gently expressing disbelief that no one was interested.

“There are still a couple more guys over there we could ask,” they began, starting to turn away.

Thankfully my friend cut in.

“Sir, there’s only so much embarrassment we can take in one day,” she said.

Mortified, we muttered our thanks for their efforts and walked away as quickly as possible, the laughter carrying on behind us.

“Well. I really didn’t see that coming.” I said.

Unwilling to admit defeat and call up female friends to accompany us, we let the two extra tickets go to waste and enjoyed the concert, humbled and alone.

The following week my dad approached the second-in-command at my brother’s hockey game, and said he heard the Thorold Fire Department was starting a new dating service for women passing by.

“How did you hear about that?” asked the fireman. “It was the weirdest thing. These two girls just showed up and asked if we could find dates for them! In twenty-five years of firefighting I’ve never heard of such a thing happening. I couldn’t believe they were serious.”

Out of kindness to me—or maybe because he was uninterested in admitting the type of daughter he raised—my dad gave no further information.

“That’s just the news,” he said. “It’s making the rounds.”