The Tigress Stalks Her Prey...

Great dinner last Friday night at one of our favorite restaurants (where we got a "Happy Birthday" card from the staff instead of a "Happy Anniversary" card). Movie plan thwarted by the fact that 1) I ate so much I could barely move, thus inducing some serious sleep in the car partially due to the fact that I stayed up until 3 am reading "The Help."  When we got home, K fell asleep on the couch instead of going to get the kids (WHAT?!  Who thinks, "Hey -- I'm gonna lay down for a few minutes before I go pick up the kids at the in-laws.  That sounds like a great idea.  I'm sure I won't slip into a sleep-induced coma."), so at 12:30 am -- which is about 5 hours after my mom's normal bedtime -- I wake up and realize that I never heard kids come in. In a panic, I wake K up, who is snoozing on his respective couch, and he tells me to call my parents.

I am still peeved about this.

If you're the one who lays down instead of going to pick up the kids (which he volunteered to do, I might add), I think you should have to suffer the consequences.  I mean, when I didn't mail my mother-in-law's Mother's Day gift or my father-in-law's Father's Day gift because I kept misplacing it, I called them and told them it was my fault the gifts were so late.

So, anyway, last night at dinner, we were talking about our past anniversaries; we came to the conclusion that very few of our anniversary dates/trips have turned out according to plan, so I guess this anniversary will go in the books as another.

(For the record, I did call my parents, but I threw K under the bus while he stood there -- totally told my mom that he laid down on the couch instead of coming to get the kids and fell asleep.  K is famous for his sleeping in my family, as he can 1) fall asleep faster than I can inhale a Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake, 2) sleep through anything, and 3) sleep as long as you will let him.  My mom was not surprised -- or upset, for that matter --,but I felt better.)

Anyway, on to the next installment:  Stalking.

Once I started working at The Home Depot, I made it a point to talk to The Hot Guy as often as possible.  It seemed to me that he came by my register a lot, but I couldn't get verification of this because the front end management wouldn't let Bess and I work together; we were always on opposite sides of the store.  (This trend continued once we started teaching together... not sure why...)  I started out in the tool corral but was quickly moved to either lumber or garden after an unfortunate incident involving a man was looking for a wood file.

Now, my dad had lots of tools laying around when I was growing up, and I'd always been fascinated with this thing that looked like a giant nail file with a point.  When the man asked me where the wood files were, I figured he was talking about this kind of file, so I told him where they were located.  He came back three different times, and I sent him to three different places.  I even asked the guy in charge of the tool corral where a wood file would be. (For the record, I was right the first time.)  Mr. Wood File came back yet again, and I'd had about enough.

"Sir, I've told you everything I know.  The only kind of file I really know anything about is a nail file, and we don't sell those here."

That was my last day in the tool corral.

What did I learn from this?  When looking for a certain tool, if YOU don't know what the tool looks like, then maybe you shouldn't be working with it.

As a cashier, you have the option of making an all-call when you need a manager's help, or you can call a manager directly.  I made quick work of finding out The Hot Guy's personal number, and when he was working, I always called him first.

He always responded. 

I took this as a sign.

One day, as I was slaving away at the garden register, I needed a manager to come get money from my till. I dialed The Hot Guy's phone, and he came out to pick up my money.  After he left and I stopped drooling, I realized he'd left a small leather-bound black notebook by my register.

It was fate. 

Of course, I opened it up and looked through it first, just in case it contained the locations of the bodies of people he'd killed or something like that; I had to make sure he was going to pass the background check that my dad would inevitably do on him if we ever went on a date.

It appeared clear -- just some work doodles -- so I dialed his number again.

Me: "Hey, you left your little black book with all of your girlfriends' numbers in it. It's out here at my register."

Hot Guy: "Thanks. While you're waiting, why don't you put your number in it. That way, it will have at least one number in it."

Ohh-  he was smooth.  He had game. He also now had my number because I wrote down as quickly as I could, just in case he changed his mind. 

I had more game, apparently, because he didn't run away or "lose" my number.

He called me later... a date followed the next evening (March 23, 1999 -- yeah, I know -- I can't remember my own phone number.  Why can I remember that date?!)... and another that weekend... and that was the beginning of us.  There were certainly some obstacles... like that whole girlfriend thing (did I mention that?  He had a girlfriend. Oops.)... but they worked themselves out. 

That July, we went to eat Cajun food, I got a nasty case of hives (seems I'm allergic to cayenne pepper), and I met his parents the next day, covered in scary red whelps.  A little over a month later, he came over to ask my dad for my hand in marriage; a concept that seemed sweet, except he kinda had a panic attack (maybe a vision of the future with three kids, two dogs, and a wife who doesn't clean house), and I basically had to talk him down from the ledge (or at least, out of the swing on my parents' carport).  Another month passed before he got up the nerve to ask -- and the proposal deserves an entry all to itself. 

I'll save that one for another day. :-)

The Story of Us

Today, K & I are celebrating ELEVEN years of marriage.

Eleven years.

Holy cow.

First, I never thought I'd like any boy this long. Ok, sometimes, I don't like him very much, but I love, love, love the man all the time. I never thought that would happen.

Second, I never thought I would find a man who would be able to put up with all of my, um, sparkling qualities for more than a few months at a time. I'm not saying I'm difficult to deal with, but... I might've been told that once or twice... or a couple hundred times.

I've been thinking a lot about our story the past couple of days, and I have to say -- we've never been normal. I've always thought that our relationship would make a great movie, which made me think of the movie, "The Story of Us" starring Michelle Pfieffer and Bruce Willis. Back in the day, when that movie came out, I made K take me to see it in the theater.

He was not really excited.

Normally, he picks the movies, and I tag along. To say our tastes in films is different is like saying Antarctica is chilly.

Anyway, one day, if our kids want to know how we came about but don't want to ask because they're teenagers and don't want to talk to us more than neccessary, I want them to be able to find "The Story of Us: The K & A Version."

Let's start at the beginning: The First Meeting

I was a senior at Clemson, having just moved home to do my student teaching. My friend Bess -- one of my college roommates, teaching partners, and general partner in crime -- had gotten a job at The Home Depot.

Not the most obvious choice for an English major, but whatev.

B wanted to introduce me to this guy, Van. I was always on the lookout for The Perfect Man, but generally, I found The Weirdo, The Suction Cup, or The Uninterested Man... so B decided to help me out.

Around January 1999, I decided to get a job at The Home Depot, too; why, I will never fully understand because at that time, my idea of home improvement involved cleaning my room.

Anyway.

I got a part-time job there in February, and I had to go to this higher level institution called Cashier College to learn how to run a register. One evening, after my educationally enlightening experience at Cashier College, I was supposed to pick B up at work and go back to her house for the evening. The plan was for us to casually bump into Van so she could make the introduction, as he wasn't really excited about the idea of a blind date.

When I got to HD (I'm sure I was over-dressed), we started walking toward the back of the store where Van was working, unaware of the extraordinary opportunity about to befall him. As we were walking toward the plumbing department (or maybe it was millwork -- I can't remember which, but still -- either place just SCREAMS "romance," right?), we saw a cluster of people standing in front of the kitchen cabinet display.

We walk up to the group because B is the friendly sort, and there, leaning against this giant, orange, rolling metal ladder, is The Most Beautiful Man I Have Ever Seen.

*Cue the angels singing and heavenly spotlight.*

I'm pretty sure my mouth dropped open slightly, which is super-hot and shows total nonchalance.

B introduces me to him and the rest of the small group, mentioning that I will be working there when I finish Cashier College; I shake his hand, hoping I'm not drooling or breathing loudly through my partially open mouth.

I managed a smile, I guess, and he said something grown-up, like "Look forward to having you working here."

As we walked away, my head was spinning, and when I finally regained my power of speech, I interrupted Bess, who was chattering on about Van, and said:

"I'm going to marry him."

B: "Who? Van? You haven't met him yet."

A: "No. That guy we just met."

B: "You can't marry him. He has a girlfriend. And he's an assistant manager. And Van is so nice."

A: "I don't care. I'm going to marry him."

B gives me a look, as we are not typically boyfriend-stealers, and we proceed on to meet Van, who was a super-nice guy but appeared to possibly be scared of me.

Now, I had no idea if The Hot Guy had any interest in me at all, but I couldn't get him out of my head. That night, I outlined B's new mission: to find out if The Hot Guy was serious with his girlfriend, to find out his basic story, to pretty much super-secret stalk him so I could figure him out. Reluctantly, she agreed; the rest was up to me... once I finished Cashier College and was bestowed with that beautiful orange apron, of course.

Tune in later for the next installment in "The Story of Us": Stalking My Prey

I'm Almost Back...

Let me tell you something, my peeps.

Whoever said having three kids is not much more work than having two kids lied.

Maybe it's just my kids (which is possible), or maybe it's just my ADD (which is also possible), but for the past 2 years, I have struggled to find time to do anything besides what is required so that I don't appear to be a total failure to the outside world.

Blogging hasn't been on the top of my list, as the outside world rarely reads my blog, BUT I have missed it... and I am campaigning to make a comeback in the next month or so...

Stay tuned...