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I had been in a bad wreck, and had spent weeks at my parents’ house, being waited on and recovering slowly, and then quickly. I had discovered that my plans of pursuing a graduate degree were not, after all, shot by brain injury. I had been researching and even applying to graduate schools out of state. I was, as we say in Texas, fixin’ to make a change.

I was at work at the bike shop late one night. Several of my fellow members of our sponsored race team had stopped by for a visit/meeting/beer drinking session. One of them was The Man I’d had a crush on for quite some time. I told him of my plans to leave town, and he seemed a bit shocked.

Just a few of us decided to go out for a beer when the shop closed. The Man was right behind us, we thought.

We met up at a local dive bar. We’ll call it Linda’s. Linda’s is a dingy, dark place; it’s best they keep it dark to hide the bugs and filth. You have to specify that you want your tequila cold or you’ll get it warm. They do keep their Lone Star beer cold, at least.

I’d had a few by the time The Man showed up; I was beginning to lose hope. But happily, he sat right next to me! After sundry conversation… he put his Lone Star down and sort of squared his body, and he said, “Okay. I need to tell you something.”

This is where it all comes out. In the paraphrased words of The Man, he had this new puppy, oh, five years ago. He took his puppy to the dog park to play around. He saw the most amazing girl there! She had this urban punk look about her (or some such) and tattoos. He thought she was amazing. She had a little dog, too. But he knew what a singles scene the dog park was, and he let it pass.

A few years later, he was going to buy beer at the liquor warehouse downtown. He found Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on sale, yay! (Yes, there is product placement in this story.) He rounded the corner in the beer aisle, and oh heck! There was Dog Park Girl! She asked if he needed help with anything, and he mumbled and fled with his case of beer.

At the register, the cashier rang his Sierra up, but the price was wrong: it was full retail. He protested, no, this beer is $31 a case on sale (or whatever it was). She pulled her PA mic over… “Beer assistance… I need beer assistance on aisle 14.” The Man looked up to see Dog Park Girl striding towards him; he hurriedly paid full price for his beer and flew out of the store.

A few years later, he entered the bike shop where he’d been shopping for some 15 years – the bike shop that had sponsored his mountain bike racing for over 10 years – and spotted none other than Dog Park Girl behind the register. He thought to himself, well, time to find a new bike shop.

Back to me. I remember this day. I was new at work, and I was behind the register with my buddy who was training me. I noticed The Man as he pulled into the parking lot in his Honda Element, a car I’d been admiring for its (bike) cargo capacity and supposed gas mileage. (The Man was later to tell me, not so much on the gas mileage.) He was a handsome man. When he walked in the door, I asked him about his Element, mentioning that one of our fellow bike monkeys drove one, too. My buddy-bike-monkey snidely informed me that this was aforementioned bike monkey’s best friend, duh. I grinned embarrassedly at The Man; but he just grinned back. He didn’t speak. He passed us by and went to find the best friend.

For the first year I worked at that bike shop, I don’t think The Man spoke to me, certainly not in polysyllables. He avoided me and went looking for the best friend; he asked to speak to the best friend on the phone. I began to despair that he was one of those sexist bike shop customers who avoids me on principle, sure that a woman couldn’t possibly decipher which size inner tube with which valve type will fit his flat tire, let alone anything more complex.

But we did gradually learn to communicate. For example, he put his foot in it when he asked about my Valentine’s Day plans on the day that I moved out of my ex-boyfriend’s house. He was clearly flustered when I explained what my plans were.

By the time I was ready to join the newly re-forming shop-sponsored race team, we were friendly, and he was able to accept my application and then we were teammates. We even had a few beers together. Fastforward to the night in question: we had had a few beers together, met at Linda’s, and sat together at the bar. We were drinking Lone Star, and he was spilling his guts.

He said that by the time he had encountered me at the dog park, the beer store, and the bike shop, and then we had become race teammates and learned to speak in complete sentences, he had decided he loved me.

My chin was on my chest. I couldn’t believe The Man I’d admired and crushed on and tried to invite to events only to be rebuffed, The Man who wouldn’t speak to me at the bike shop for a whole year because he was a sexist, was not a sexist at all. He was just tongue-tied! And in LOVE?

Two months later, we were engaged, on a beach in Mexico; and another two months after that, we were married under a big tree in a park in hometown Houston. Then we opened our cans of Modelo Especial. I did not leave town for graduate school. That night at Linda’s was the last time I was really, truly, outrageously floored.

I wrote this in response to The Daily Post, which gives daily prompts for bloggers who might be writers-blocked. I rarely respond to the prompts, but I find them interesting. After sitting on this for a while and getting Husband’s permission, I thought I would go ahead and share it here.

Filed under: musings | Tagged: personal |