What It's Like To Fall In Love

With Valentine's Day almost here, I find myself reflecting on the one hundred years or so that my lovely wife and I have now been together.  Did I say one hundred years?  Maybe it's only ninety-nine.  Time sure does fly.

2002.

I met my lovely wife in the summer of 2002.  We were high school sweethearts.  And by that I mean she was still in high school and I was not anymore.  I'm nearly five years older than her.  At the time I took a lot of flack for it, but hey, I ended up marrying that girl so I guess the moral is... well.... I don't know.

The first time I met my lovely wife, she was working at a convenience store.  I bought a drink and a pack of gum.  This is an important detail to the story, so pay attention. Future Lovely Wife was so enamored by my hotness and raw sexual aura that she fumbled around and only charged me nine cents for the pack of gum.

Score! 

Hey, even if this relationship never went anywhere I could at least say I got a really good deal on a pack of gum.

Believe it or not, I never asked her out.  We got to talking on the phone a lot, and on ICQ (uh-oh!) and it turned out that while she'd had boyfriends before she'd never actually been out on a real date.  Future Lovely Wife had a great rack and gave off all the right signals, so I told her I was going to take her to dinner and a movie.

And I did just that.  But first, a stop in the park - because, really, what's more romantic than taking a seventeen year old girl to a boring park when you promised her dinner and a movie?  You got it - convincing her to give you a sweet back massage in the park!  And gosh darn that was a good back rub.  This was where we shared our first passionate kiss.
(On a side note, when I finally proposed to her years later so she could become Lovely Fiance I did so in the same park.  I'm a sucker for nostalgia and tradition)

So I took her to dinner at Frankie Pesto's.  It's always been a great date spot.  Vines on the wall.  Sinatra playing while you eat.  And, since I don't drive, there's a very convenient bus stop only a few feet away from the restaurant.

The movie of choice was The Master of Disguise, starring Dana Carvey.  You may have noticed it showed up on my Top 11 Romantic Movies list, only because it was from our first date.  That movie is otherwise complete and total shit.  But, if you think about it, that movie needed to be total shit in order for us to not want to watch it.   I mean, seriously, can you imagine if your first date movie was something like Star Wars?  You don't want to actually watch the movie during a first date, but at the same time it's fucking Star Wars.  That bloody classic deserves your attention.  Unless, of course, it's The Phantom Menace, then by all means start making out.

And that's what we did, because The Master of Disguise is a waste of film, and there were only five or six other people in the same theater as us.  We sucked face in the theater during a shitty movie where Dana Carvey repeats the line, "turtle turtle turtle."  Boy, do I know how to show a girl a good time.

Our hot make-out session was only interrupted for a moment by two little girls.  They were at the movie with their parents a couple rows ahead of us and took the time to inform said parents that we were, indeed, "ewwww kissing!" And those two little girls grew up to be Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus.  Okay, that last part is a total lie, but I'm sure they remember more about The Master of Disguise than I do.
(Side note number two... I bought The Master of Disguise on DVD for Lovely Wife one year for our anniversary.  We've still never sat through the entire thing)

There was an awkward moment during the movie though.  Future Lovely Wife was concerned that I wasn't having a good time because I kept getting up, leaving, and then coming back.  She thought maybe I didn't really like her... even though I had already stuck my tongue in her mouth by this point.  Silly. In all actuality, I was starting to get the flu and I kept running to the washroom to blow my nose.  I didn't want her to see me blow my nose.  Thought it would ruin my chances of getting in her pants later.  Am I right, ladies?  Exactly.

After the movie I took her back to my place.  Okay, I took her back to my PARENTS place because I had moved back home for a little while.  This was an opportunity for Future Lovely Wife to meet my mom and dad, even though it was now close to midnight.  Mom was asleep.  Dad was awake when we came through the front door, and he was in his tighty-whities, peeing with the door open.  For the whole world to see.

This is where I'd like to end the story of my first date with Lovely Wife, and I'd love to be able to do so in some classic Disney-ish fashion, where we share another passionate kiss and promise ourselves to each other forever and ever.  Instead, I tried to get in her pants.  But that's tough to do when you live with your parents.  Some things take a little more time.

And hey, would'ja look at that - I ended up marrying her.  Now that's a love story.

- ryan of the ryan fan club

For Hallowe'en she was Supergirl and I was Johnny Depp.