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.

My Mannogram

My wife is upset because she’s over 40 and has to get a Mammogram.

“What’s the big deal?” I asked.

“OK”, she said. “We’ll stick your balls in vise and see how you like it. We’ll call it a Mannogram!”

I guess they hurt. She’s also been a little testy lately.

Life Lessons From Dirty Harry

“A man’s got to know his limitations.” No truer line has ever been spoken in a movie. I’ve lived a huge chunk of my life doing crazy things and finding out just what mine are. Before I got married I wouldn’t think twice about changing a job I was bored with to try another, or go on some stupid adventure or road trip on a whim.

If you saw my resume you’d think one of two things. “My, what unique and diverse individual.“ or “That jackass can’t hold a job!” Marriage changes all that, especially marriage and kids. It changes if you want to make a go of it. I’ve known guys that have never changed, but I did.

Every once in a great while I’ll bump into someone from my past. The conversation will eventually come around to, “Remember that time when you,” and I’ll be waving my hands frantically in the air behind my wife’s back and mouthing the word, “NO!” to get him to shut up. It usually doesn’t work and in a private moment later on my wife will say, “If I’d known then what I know now about you, I’d have never…” and then she stops, shakes her head and gives me a sideways glance.

“Well you’re stuck with me honey,” I’ll say, “till death because my side of the family doesn’t believe in divorce.” Secretly I think my wife lives in perpetual fear that I’m going to crack someday and return to wayward ways in some prolonged midlife crisis binge of sin and debauchery. But the truth is I’m happy with what I have. I’m not going anywhere. And my kids are in for a big surprise if they think I’m going to be some clueless Dork of a dad that they can rollover and con while they’re growing up.