My name is Laura. (If you are reading this, you probably know who I am, but I will not judge. I blog hop frequently.) You can call me Lois. Everyone from school calls me that. You can also call me Lu or Louie or Lauren. Many people think my name is Lauren when I introduce myself to them. I do not like making them feel embarrassed so I rarely correct people when they think my name is something other than it is. In fact, my mother-in-law thought that my name was Lauren for several months before I met her son.
That's right. I knew my mother-in-law before I knew my husband. How many people can say that?
You see, it all began just over a year ago. I work at a kiosk in the local mall and my mother-in-law works at the customer service desk. I worked most mornings as did she so we often greeted each other with a friendly remark. After a few weeks after that came introductions. Finally, we passed over the awkward small talk phase (I hate small talk) and into random tidbit phase.
We discovered that we both love California and San Diego. We learned one week that Cathy and her family were headed to San Diego the weekend before I had a trip planned there. Hers was for a family vacation. Mine was to visit my boyfriend at the time.
A couple months later, we were apparently close enough for her to ask me if I was planning on marrying "San Diego" boy. I informed her that the two of us had broken up a month after my trip out there, so I was not planning on marrying him. She gave her condolences and said some of the usual things people say when they find out that a break up has happened.
A couple weeks after that, she was walking by one evening that I was closing with her husband and oldest son. I knew her husband as he works as a floor manager at the local mall and I had seen her son dozens of times, but had never spoken or even had a "familial nod" with him. Cathy bid me a good night and her husband gave a "familial nod" and then they were gone.
Fast forward to the next morning.
I was opening the cart as Cathy scurried up.
"What would you think about going out with my son?"
"Uh, sure."
(In my post-breakup state, I was a dating machine. I went out with as many guys that would ask me. This averaged out to be between 2 and 4 times a week. What was adding one more guy to the list?)
Cathy continued on to telling me random facts about her eldest son (and for some reason, his two sisters). Every time she would see me in the next couple of days, she would come up and start talking about her son again. Amusing things. Things he liked. Things he did not like. Finally one day, I saw her walking up with her son. She introduced him and told us about the things we had in common and after a semi-painful conversation, the two left and I was left chuckling to myself.
He was shy. I was being set up with a shy guy. I had never gone out with someone that was less talkative than I was (on a regular basis).
For the next few weeks, Wolf (that's his name), would drop by for a minute or two on a semi-regular basis. We would have interesting conversations and then he would leave and I would chuckle again. Finally, after several weeks of almost awkward conversations, he asked for my number. I gave it to him. He called.
He called me on a Monday evening an hour before I was headed to a hip-hop class. I was in the middle of cooking dinner and I managed to finish cooking my dinner, eat it, and get dressed for hip-hop during my first phone conversation I had with him. The more the two of us talked, the less I said and the more he babbled. He asked me out for that Friday night. Dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant and a movie after.
How did the date go?
What movie did we see?
How late did he arrive for the date?
Stay tuned for part II
I want part twooooooooo. :)
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