Do you wanna go out?

Asking a person out on a date was an art form in the 80's. Granted, it still may be somewhat the same these days, but since I've not asked anyone out on a date (aside from my wife) in over 20 years, I may be a bit out of touch.
Where I grew up in Utah, we would have these "Dinner / Dances" held every 6 weeks or so. They consisted of some of the traditional themes like Homecoming, Sadie Hawkins, Jr. Prom, Preference, and a few others they added along the way. You would take your date to dinner, and then go to a dance afterward.
For each of these dances, it was either boy or girl choice to ask. It wasn't enough to call someone up and ask, "Do you wanna go out?". Oh no. That didn't work at all. It was expected that you ask the person out in a clever way.
Sometimes you would ask by giving them instructions on how to respond. I remember for one of my dances, my then girlfriend asked me out by giving me a box of Froot Loops and some string. I was to create a necklace out of the Froot Loops in a certain pattern if the answer was "yes" and wear it to school the next day. Granted, on this one, I cheated a little. I did, in fact, create said necklace, but wore a jacket to cover it up so I wouldn't walk around the school embarrassed all day.
Then there were those times you were asked out and your response was left open. A good friend of mine had a girl respond to his request by giving him a block of ice with the response in the middle of it. After smashing it open and getting the note out, it said, "Now that we've broken the ice, I would love to go!" (Ahhhh . . . sweet!)
I recall responding to one of the times I was asked out by doing the following: I bought like 30 helium balloons. On each balloon, I wrote one word of my response, with the last balloon giving the answer. I then tied the end of each string to the knot of the previous balloon. The end result was a string of balloons that reached pretty high into the sky. I then tied the bottom balloon to her door handle, rang her doorbell, and took off. She was forced to pull in the balloons one by one to read the answer (which, of course, was "yes!")
One of the crueler ways I asked someone was to get "revenge" on my girlfriend for the Froot Loop caper. I wrote my request to ask her out on 20 or so papers, about an inch square with one word and a number so she could tell the sequence. I then crinkled up these papers. My next move? I bought a BIG old bag of popcorn--one of those about a foot in diameter and several feet long. Inside this bag, I randomly placed the papers--which happened to look very much like popcorn. :) (She still said "yes")
But the greatest "asking out" story is something of a legend. There was a guy who would be considered a "nerd", but a very smart one who really didn't care what others thought of him. If my memory serves me correctly, the dance was around Easter time. This guy bought a dozen or so very cheap Easter Baskets. He then wrote a note in each basket saying, "Will you go to the dance with me? If yes, return this basket with your favorite candy. If no, please understand the sorry this will bring me, and return the basket filled will all sorts of candy to help soothe pain." He then gave these baskets to all the cheerleaders or girls he knew had steady boyfriends.
Not one of them said yes--but that wasn't the point. He made out like a bandit on the amount of candy he got in return.