boy meets girl

tomorrow is my...um...3? yes, I think it's 3. 3 year anniversary of being married to sean. want to hear about how we met and how we got married? too bad, I am going to tell you anyways.

sean and I both worked at cdnow. though we didn't know it. sean worked in customer service 3rd shift, and I worked in marketing during regular business hours. I never heard of him.

I had a friend named erika who used to work custserv 3rd shift and who still had alot of friends who worked that shift. it was one of the third shifter's birthdays, and they were getting together at a bar in a very out of the way town called trappe for her birthday celebration. erika hated going places by herself and would ask just about anyone to go with her somewhere just so she wouldn't have to go alone. she and I weren't really even that close, but she asked me if I wanted to go, and because I was feeling sort of lonely and had nothing better to do, I went. it was quite boring, and I only knew one or two people there - and even at that, I didn't know them very well. other cdnow employees were playing in a cover band that night called bigg romeo, and I just sat there and watched them, waiting for erika to be ready to leave so I could get the fuck out of there.

sidenote: I don't drink. not even socially. I just don't like it. I totally don't mind when other people do, it's just not my thing. I go to bars and hang out and ACT drunk, I just don't GET drunk. another interesting fact - I don't drink coffee either. or smoke. my lone addiction is soda. that's "pop" for all you midwesterners.

so anyway. I'm sitting there just waiting to leave, and this guy comes up to me. or something. I don't remember exactly how it went down. I just remember the guy looking really quite scary. he was really hairy and big and was wearing giant olive drab cargo pants and a big gray hooded sweatshirt. he asked me if I wanted to try his drink - a red death. perhaps I was drinking a shirley temple (my "drink" of choice) and he thought I would enjoy this other red thing. anyways, I said no thank you, and gave him my line that I always use to get men to leave me alone. I told him that I had to get up early the next day because my son had a baseball tournament. scares 'em away every time. he still talked to me though but we didn't really converse all that much. though we caught each other's eyes during the rest of the night.

at the end of the night (we stayed until closing, goddamn erika) we all were in the parking lot saying our goodbyes. I still didn't really know anyone, but then the scary guy came out and I realized he worked at cdnow. it was his last day on 3rd shift, he was taking a new position that was during regular business hours.

that scary guy with all the hair...it was sean. and I didn't think much about the whole thing afterwards, to tell the truth.

so the following week, I'm at work and I find someone's keys left in the women's bathroom. I sent out an email to everyone in the building that I found keys, blah blah blah, I took them to the front desk. sean saw my email, recognized my name, and replied, asking me....wait for it....HOW MY SON'S BASEBALL TOURNAMENT WENT THE WEEKEND PRIOR. a) he remembered me, b) he remembered that I said I had a son, c) he remembered that said son had a game, and d) he wasn't freaked out by it. I had no idea what he was talking about because trent didn't really have a baseball tournament, but I recovered quickly and said he scored 87 runs. or something equally braggy.

we got to talking over email, which I highly recommend when you're getting to know someone as it's a shitload of info that winds up being shared, and then I invited him to lunch at a local mexican restaurant. imagine his surprise when I paid the bill...and his surprise surprised me. after all, I invited him. so to repay me, he asked if I wanted to have lunch with him the next week. I said sure. in true sean fashion, instead of taking me somewhere, he made me a lunch. he brought his lunch every day, so he just made an extra lunch and brought it. he asked me if I liked american or provolone cheese better, as he had 2 cheese sandwiches and would give me whichever one I wanted. and we even had tastykakes.

it took me a little while to realize what a great guy sean was. he was scary looking, made me a cheese sandwich for our second lunch date, and seemed to only have 2 pairs of pants. and he lived with his mother. but I quickly learned that he was a loving, loyal, sweet man. and that I had to get him more pants.

okay, I was going to tell the story of our wedding, but this is already really long, so maybe sean will tell that story tomorrow? I have the day off. if not, I'll tell you all on monday.

happy anniversary, seansylvania.