A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Happily Ever After...
Part II:
I was jobless, penniless, a college dropout with a mountain of debt, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life when she walked into that bowling alley. I looked over my pitcher of beer and nearly choked. There was the woman I was going to marry.
Now I won't pretend that I knew that right away. I don't think anyone is really clairvoyant enough to take one glance at someone and just "know". After all, just a few years earlier I "knew" who I was going to marry. Let's just say I had an intense feeling that something was different, special even, with this one.
That is not to say that she felt the same way about me. As I said, I was a drunk, broke, jobless drop out without much appeal when I chugged that last bit of liquid courage and dropped myself on the stool next to her. What happened next would change my life forever.
She had been invited to this bowling party as a friend of a friend of a co-worker of mine. I had already met Jen, my wife’s best friend, and this was the only “in” I needed. As I made my way over to the girls, I pretended not to have an agenda. I was merely there to be friendly to someone I had met before and to introduce myself to her guest. They must have been able to see right through that.
There was this one problem, aside from the previously stated lack of qualifications; I was there with my stalker girlfriend. I quite literally dumped her on the spot; she had been sitting on my lap. When I broke the ice with the new girl she responded, "Isn't that your girlfriend over there?”
Awkward.
Not one to be phased by such insignificant details, I replied, "Who her? Oh, I was planning on breaking up with her."
This was mostly true, as I had just that week had my epiphany that I was through pretending to be someone I was not, and letting stalker girl down easy was something I just hadn’t finished puzzling out. At that very moment a saving grace came blasting over the crackling overhead speakers. It was the "Casper Slide, part II", and I knew all of the moves. I grabbed my future wife by the hand and insisted that she join me to shake what her momma gave her.
We danced, we laughed, and I made a complete fool of myself. Then a higher power intervened and she actually gave me her phone number; which I promptly lost. My roommate and I were off to another party, and I thought that I may never see this beautiful woman again.
A week later I was using my roommates phone when I came across a name that shot trough me like a lightning bolt. Christie. I would later find out that I had not even been close to spelling the name correctly, but this solved the mystery as to why I could not find her number. I had picked up my roommates phone on accident when she was giving it to me at the bowling alley that night.
Right away I tried to come up with a good reason that we should hang out. The answer became all too clear; I had to get them all to come to Karaoke. See, I was sort of a regular at the local bar. I loved to sing, not to say I could sing well, but there were always good times to be had by all when we hung out a Harpo's. Later we would change hang outs due to what my wife lovingly refers to as the tramps that were frequenting the establishment. That, and the place was robbed one Sunday and the custodian was shot and killed. That will put a damper in any hang out.
They came over, I played guitar a little, and we went to the club where we sang Karaoke all night. After the bar closed we went to a friend of mines apartment for a couple drinks. It was a bit stuffy in the apartment, so Kristy and I went outside. There we sat on the steps until 4am, trading stories about childhood, friends, and work. It was great. We could still be sitting there right now, talking away. We had such a great connection. I was terrified.
When she tells this story she always says that was the night she stopped thinking of me as just some guy that was fun to hang out with, and started to think of me as someone she wanted to be with. I say that connection didn't really set in for me until one night in the back seat of her best friend’s car, although not like you might think. Let me explain...
(To be continued...)
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