My Mushy Valentines Post

I know that I have a lot of fun giving Angry Joyce hell on this site. The truth is though that I love her immensely and do not know what I would do without her. For one she has hid all my shit to the point where if I need anything I have to ask her where the hell it is and for another reason although it has been only a little over 10 years since we married sometimes I have a hard time remembering my life without her in it.

When I first met my wife, she was working in a convenience store. A lot of my friends had asked me if I had seen the new cashier at the Fina. I had to tell them no as this was a store that I avoided like the plague. They all told me how hot she was but I figured that if they had managed to find a half decent looking employee then she had to stick out like a diamond in a pig's ass. This store had the scaggliest looking employees that walked the face of the earth so I doubted the validity of the story of the hot new cashier. But after much pestering from my buds, I decided to go and check her out for myself.

I strolled over to the soda fountain and glanced over at the cash register and the cashier and they were telling the truth. There she stood with short bleach blond hair, a curvaceous figure, and a winning smile. I thought to myself that here might be something. When I was checking out, from her mouth issued some smart ass remark that got under my skin in no time flat and pissed me off to the extreme. I cannot remember what it was that she said but I do remember that it turned me off instantly.

Evidently it did not piss me off altogether though for I kept returning to this store during her working hours and she kept right on with her smart ass remarks and right on pissing me off. I finally got pissed off enough that I did not return to the store. Then a strange thing started happening. I would think about her whenever I passed the store and then I started thinking about her all the time. I would think about the way she looked and I would think about the way that she pissed me off. It was driving me crazy wondering how she had been able to get under my skin when I had been a confirmed love 'em and leave 'em type for so long.

I finally decided that there was only one solution and that was to ask her out on a date. I did not however want to do the typical dinner and dancing or dinner and movie type of thing. These things were old hat and I would simply be performing an old trick and fall into old habits of not looking at the person underneath but only what I could get out of the relationship. The next day, she was at work so I headed over there and asked her out to a weekly barbeque that a few friends of mine held every weekend. I figured that it was a comfortable setting and we could relax and get to know one another and I could find out just what it was about her that let her get under my skin.

I found out that she is an extremely witty and engaging person and perhaps the reason she gets under my skin (she still does) is that I may have been a little wary of being with someone that forces me to stay on my toes and forcing me to always stay on top of every conversation. To make a long story short, the next week we had our first real date going out to dinner and then dancing. After that date, I basically stayed the night until she moved in with me. Three months later, we were married. I had waited two months shy of my thirtieth birthday to find the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and I did not see any reason to wait any longer.

J.R., ten years seem as but a day. Happy Valentines Day and know that I love you not only on this day but each and every day for the rest of our lives.