Freshmen Madison Wineman and Ryan Harvel play games and eat dessert in downtown Paso Robles

Amid the games of Chutes and Ladders and Candyland, freshmen Madison Wineman and Ryan Harvel found themselves in their own odyssey in downtown Paso, not knowing what they had gotten themselves into.

Harvel tapped his foot and talked nervously as he anxiously waited to see who he was going on a date with. He guessed the names of potential daters, but without success. Once he saw Wineman he smiled and laughed.

“You were my first guess.”

Both daters connected over school and sports, and the conversation turned to their hopes for the evening. As the lights of downtown Paso started to sparkle in the distance, their guesses only grew.

“Are we going Good Times or Yanagis?” they asked in curious unison.

When they arrived at their final destination, they were both overjoyed to see that it was the Odyssey World Cafe.

Walking in the door with the aroma of freshly baked bread, they sat at a reserved table for two. The blind daters debated whether they should get something really expensive or stay modest on the menu. Wineman decisively chose a delectable chicken caesar salad, whereas Harvel gave up his usual steak for a mouthwatering chicken marsala.

As they waited on their dinner, the two began to play one of their childhood favorites, Chutes and Ladders. Harvel, filled with excitement, won, but Wineman was not about to give up. Her hopes of beating him in the next round were dashed, however, when she still lost. Later, Harvel confessed to his tactics, telling her that she “will never beat (him) because you can’t beat a cheater.”

The food arrived, and the daters chatted amiably about sports and filled the overladen table with laughter as well as chicken. The two were ecstatic to see that the food looked just as good as it sounded. They couldn’t get enough of the meals they were eating, but eventually the big portions became too much to eat, especially if they were trying to save room for dessert. So the daters gathered up their homemade bread and caesar salad into the generic styrofoam to go boxes to have for the next day for lunch.

Every proper date night needs to end with its dessert, blind or not. As the two scrutinized the dessert menu, the both came to consensus that what they should get is cheesecake.

One thing Odyssey is known for is Trivial Pursuit, which was next on the menu for the daters as they waited impatiently for their dessert to come. Wineman thought it the game would be a walk in the park for her, yet she struggled alongside Harvel throughout the game. When the next card pulled revealed a question about baseball, Wineman was thrilled to testHarvel on his own sport. “What baseball equipment was first baseman Charles Wait first to wear?”  Harvel gave a simultaneous nod and point at Wineman “Uhhhh, a glove?” Harvel was surprised to see that he was right.

The time had come. The infamous cheesecake, with the raspberry sauce drizzled in the shape of a heart, was delivered to their table. The two of them sat as they looked into each other’s eyes to see who was going to take the first bite. They both looked down and back up at each other, and in synchronization dug their forks into the lovely dessert. In the blink of an eye, the cheesecake was gone.

That night they parted closer, their friendship built on cheesecake and cheating on Chutes and Ladders.

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