How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother

My family and I just got back from our trip to Maryland for my niece’s wedding. The wedding stirred up a lot of memories, mostly about how my wife and I first met and things that happened on our first date, later dates, etc…

When I first met my wife I was working as a store manager on the campus of the University of California Riverside. I had a store that sold clothes to the college kids and it also sold used compact discs. This was back in 1994.

I first met her on the stairs of the housing complex where I lived on campus. She was with a mutual acquaintance. She had beautiful blue eyes, hair that went down to the small of her back and an “Emma Thompson look” and intelligence that sent my head spinning. I like the pretty, brainy, types. We talked briefly and went our separate ways.

I saw her again at a party hosted by the previously mentioned acquaintance. I don’t remember who I was with or who she was with, all I remember was her.

A few days later she came into the store and was looking kind of sad so we talked a while. I blew off every customer in the store, I didn’t care, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. I wanted to ask her out but considering her state of mind at the time I didn’t know how she would react to me.

A couple of weeks passed, I’m in my apartment lamenting to myself, “God! Why can’t I find the right girl?” and God replies, “You idiot! She’s next door!”

I heard noise outside, I look out my window and there was my future wife moving into the student apartment right next door. I said, “Thanks God.”

She was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. I volunteered my services to help move the heavier stuff into her place, getting suspicious glances from the guy that was already helping her move.

Later that night, cleaned up, I went across the common area separating our apartments and knocked on her door. The two female voices I heard inside stopped, the door opened, and it was her.

“Would you like to go out and get some coffee?” I asked.

She and her roommate started to giggle.

“Did I say something funny?”

“No,” she said, “I’ll tell you sometime.”

She grabbed a sweater and we were off.

Later on in our relationship she told me. That night she and her roommate were lamenting about not finding Mr. Right. She said to her roommate, “What do you think? He’ll just walk right through the door?”

That’s when I knocked on her door and asked her out for coffee.