A Story…

Way back in 1989, a high school student and future country music singer formed a rock band with a struggling university student and a couple of other friends. (Don’t worry too much about the band – it’s really not part of the story. Besides, they were really bad).

One weekend, early the next year, the future country singer asked the university student to go to a party with him. About the last thing in the world the university student wanted to do was go to “teen” party. Future country was desperate, though.  It seems that the party was being hosted by a certain young lady he was quite interested in. She had asked him repeatedly to come to her party and, though he didn’t want too, he didn’t want alienate her either. The university student would be his excuse – they would make a brief appearance at the party then make a hasty exit because of some pressing matter…

The university student agreed to go so long as the visit would be brief. On the appointed day, the two arrived at the party fashionably late, prepared to stay scant minutes and leave quickly.

An odd thing happened to the university student as he entered, though. Another young lady at the party caught his attention almost immediately. They chatted a bit. She was quite beautiful, with a bubbly personality and an infectious laugh. The two mingled but whenever the university student looked in her direction, she seemed to be looking at him too. It was then that the university student realized that he had been staring at this young lady for far too long. Someone else was speaking to him and he hadn’t heard a word the person had said. He realized that his heart was beating a bit faster than normal and his knees felt a little weak and…

He stopped at this point to give himself a reality check. First off, not only did this guy not believe in love at first sight, the events of the past two years had convinced him that he did not believe in love at all. Besides, he was probably imagining any chemistry between himself and that young lady. And that’s another thing, she was young – too young for him. And then all the reasons that this could never happen began to add up: she was too pretty for him, she probably already had a boyfriend, and even if she was interested in him, she would turn out to be a flake or a lying cheat like those other ones…

Eventually the future country music singer and the university student left the party to attend to their pressing business - to go throw some bottles at stop signs. The university student was strangely quiet for the next few days until he resolved to ask the future county music singer a few things about that young lady from the party…

The rest, as they say, is history.

And now you know how I met my wife – 17 years ago today.