Sweet Valley Twins #79: Jessica's Blind Date

Jessica isn't too crazy about Aaron Dallas as of late. Not only does he wear neon shorts, which went out of style months ago, but he dares to act like a junior high school student sometimes. Gasp! When they meet up at Casey's, he orders bubblegum ice cream with sprinkles, slurps his ice cream, and wears a shirt with Donald Duck on it. The slurping puts her over the edge and she dumps him.

The other Unicorns can't believe she would do something so stupid, especially with Rick Hunter's big party coming up. At the same time Elizabeth decides to run a classifieds section in the paper after having problems finding a tutor for Amy. Jessica begs and pleads for her to let her add a personal ad to the section.

Her ad (Gorgeous Blond) is so popular that they run out of copies. Lila agrees to run her own ad when her boyfriend Jake forgets about their one month anniversary, and other Unicorns decide to run ads too. Before long, everyone wants their own ad in the paper. Liz naturally gets all pissy about how her twin always comes up with great ideas and because so many people want to place an ad. That all changes when she decides to charge a fee for placing an ad and raises almost $200 for the paper.

Most of the ads she gets go right in the trash, but one guy sounds perfect. He says his cousin is Johnny Buck, he travels on the road as a musician all the time, and he's about to turn 16 and buy a Porsche. She agrees to meet him at the Dairi Burger, spends hours getting ready, and heads over. Turns out that it was just Steven pulling a prank on her.

She finally does get a letter from someone who sounds perfect. He calls himself Athletic Guy, and she loves his first letter so much that she writes him back that same day. She doesn't hear back from him until he puts an ad in the paper to let her know that she never included her box number for his response. They send dozens of letters back and forth before he asks her to Rick's party.

Elizabeth asks her twin for help picking out a party outfit because she doesn't want Todd to get sick of her. Jess picks out a short flared teal miniskirt and a black off the shoulder top that makes young Todd's eyes pop out of his head. Jess then spends all night getting read for the party too. When the doorbell rings, she finds Aaron on the other side. He admits that he figured out it was her a week ago but didn't say anything because he wasn't sure how she would react. They both agree that they're glad it was the other person.

The party ends up being pretty lame. Most couples broke up before hand to go with people they met through their ads, but Jess and Aaron were the only happy pairing. They end up skipping the party and heading to the pizza place where they order pineapple pizza. Turns out they both always loved it but didn't know the other did until they exchanged letters. Awww.

*Amy initially doesn't want them to run personal ads because The Sixers is a "serious paper." (A) Big time newspapers did have personal ads and (B) your rinky dink middle school paper is not serious journalism.

*A new computer store just opened in Sweet Valley called Comp America. That made me giggle. How long has it been since Comp USA went out of business?

*Elizabeth tells Todd that she's worried he'll place an ad, and he tells her he has no reason too because he already has the perfect girl. I thought that was super sweet until I remembered the Sweet Valley Confidential books.

*Liz and Amy are really rude about the whole personal ad thing and how it will ruin the reputation of the entire paper. Once again, you're in sixth grade.

*Someone on the staff suggests using the money they make to buy a mini fridge to keep in the office. Elizabeth immediately shoots it down because it needs to be something for everyone. They point out that it would help when they need to stay late after school, and she says it would just lead to students coming in and taking food. Why does she have to spoil everything?

*They end up buying software so they can make the newspaper more interesting. Yay?