Happy 13th Anniversary Sinatra!

Thirteen years ago today, around three hours past midnight, my friend Erv and I were on a typical college-era, pointless, shoot the shi*,  middle of the night road trip when we wanted to stop for some food at a 24 hour Subway.

It was closed, and I found out later it was the first and only time in a decade they'd been forced to shut their doors because of staff call-ins.

So we wound up at George Webb's on 47th and Forest Home (for you non-Wisconsinites, Webb's is the hometown equivalent of a Waffle House). The waitress was spouting your typical "I love Clinton" Democrat B.S. 

Thus, I ignored her.

My only real interaction with the woman was a brief dialogue about breakfast sausage. I wanted links, they only had patties. Such is the level of debate at a coffee house at 3 a.m.

Somehow the waitress wormed her way into our conversation, and almost without realizing it, I began flirting with her. At one point we discussed music and I mentioned I loved big bands.

"I love them too," she said.

"Well, then I'm just going to have to marry you," I said.

Now as it happens just a few days before I'd been lamenting my bachelorhood - by that I mean my suffocating loneliness - with Erv and the sarcastic S.O.B. had actually had me sign a statement saying I would never meet anyone.

Keep in mind at the time, while blessed with the full and lush hair of a god, I was greatly overweight, clothed in a black sweatshirt and plain jeans, ugly sneakers, made $4.50/hr while going to school full time, and had severe plumbers crack.

[That last part never has changed. Consistency is the key to happiness my friends, the key!]

Erv mentioned this contract in passing to the waitress, and when the bill arrived so did this note:

I was floored. "What should I do?" I asked Erv.

"Leave a bigger tip," he said.

So I wrote back.

I went home, she called me and we went out . . to a different Webb's. I was still full but she hadn't eaten so she ordered breakfast. I said all of 5 words during the meal and was regretting the whole disaster.

"I don't know what's wrong with you," she said all po'd, " but when I'm done with breakfast I'll take you home and forget this ever happened."

Fine by me. Then for some reason this . . this . . Democrat across the table called my beloved Gov. Tommy Thompson a drunk.

No one goes after my Tommy.

So I began to debate her, and after a good half hour or so she asked if I wanted to go with her to get a car wash. I did, and she also stopped home to show me some books she'd just ordered from Book of The Month, hoping to impress my nerdom (it did).

We parked by a local park and talked for awhile, and I remember having to hold this little boombox because she'd bought the car without an installed radio and still hadn't found the funds to purchase one.

Honestly, my clearest memory of the talk was the way her chest pushed out as she spoke with her back to the door.

{D-D-D Diva she used to say, joking about her cup size}

That was when we had our first hug. A few hours later we went to see Higher Learning and had our first kiss.

All in all, our first date lasted 10 hours or so.

I was home for about an hour before she called me. Later that night, after a short nap, I called her and we went out again, this time spending some time at the lakefront and coming home at dawn.

A few days later I spent the night in her dorm room, listening to Billy Joel, playing Skipbo, and making out. She'd cut her hair short and dyed it red because she knew both made me crazy, and in return I'd made a failed effort to pull up the back of my pants.  

And no, sadly we didn't *ahem* just yet.

On the way home the next morning we got into a fender bender with her brand new car, and Lis was shaken up. At the time I didn't know how to drive stick so her Mom came to pick us up.

"You should see a doctor, your neck is all bruised," she said to me with concern.

Yeah, uh, not actually from the accident, but thank you :) .

That was how I met my mother-in-law.

After some bumpy patches and drama I proposed on Christmas day, on one knee at the lakefront by Sheridan park, and we were married the next October.

We still have both notes, obviously, and at least once a week Lis wears the shirt I wore that day to bed, now thin and full of holes. In 13 years she has yet to listen to a single big band tune and could not, for the life of her, tell me the difference between Glen Miller and Barney Miller.

Without question, February 22nd remains one of the most pivotal and important dates in my life, if not the most.

Love you Lis, and happy anniversary!

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Tags: Lisa, Blogplugs