Lunch at Jenny Craig's

When I was in tenth grade I was basically a nerd in denial. I took a zero-hour chemistry course that was well before any sane person came to school. The class was full of Type-A students and seniors on the verge of dropping out. My lab table was the most diverse with a black kid named Marcus and a Korean named Jinn who were both skaters/sci-fi/anime geeks very similar to me. In between shoving thermometers into mystery liquids we'd talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dragon Ball, and video games. One day Jinn invited me to come over the his house to watch movies, whatever kids our age did. I went over on a Saturday, greeted by a Korean mom and a White dad, pretty typical stuff. We went to Jinn's room and something seemed a bit off. There were Dragon Ball wall scrolls, a set of Japanese action figures and the like, but there was some Sailor Moon posters and the room was a little too... pink? Jinn fired up his computer and showed me some ROMs he had and we talked about some manga he got from Asia when he visited some family members. Suddenly the door opened and the mother poked her head into the room.

"Jenny, I told you if you're having boys over you need to keep your door open."
"Sorry, Mom."

I can't remember if or what expression passed on my face in that moment. Jinn was Jenny? I heard the name 'Jenny Craig' thrown around at school a lot, but never in my chemistry class. People even TOLD ME I knew Jenny Craig, but I always pictured a chubby white girl and shrugged it off. But here I was, essentially meeting Jenny Craig for the first time. In her bedroom with Sailor Moon silently judging me. This was perhaps the first of several times where I felt like I was tricked into a date.

We ate some grilled cheese, watched some kind of movie in her room, and I'm not really sure when I left or how long I'd been there, but I never went out with Jenny Craig ever again.