Without even bringing up Valentine's Day (which is next Monday if you forgot), two of my co-workers and I were talking about how we met the person we are closest to and love more than anyone else we have ever dated (that is tricky to word!). One girl, who has dated her boyfriend for less than a year, mentioned that she and her boyfriend dispute when they first met. One says they met at a bar, the other says they met elsewhere. Turns out they did in fact meet at a bar (it isn't as bad as it sounds) but there are some details that make the other person right about how they met as well. The other co-worker is married to her husband and has been for many years now. She reminisced about meeting her husband in a tile store. A tile store for goodness sake! What are the odds of meeting someone in such a random area? And then finally, I had my story about meeting my future husband.
Some people may not know our story. Some people may not care about our story. However, I am going to tell it anyway.
Bryan and I both started working at the Dillon's Grocery Store in Manhattan Kansas in 2006. Both of us were going to K-State (BEST college in the WORLD!!!) full time and working part time; mostly at night. I worked in customer service and got to know the people I worked with pretty well. One night I was talking to one of my co-workers about needing a boyfriend. Since we were at work, he scanned the front end area and asked me what my type of guy was based on who was working that night. Bryan happened to be working, and I mentioned that I thought he was kind of cute. My co-worker looked at me and said "He's kind of dorky" (I love you, babe, whether you are dorky or not, which you are not). I smiled and said that it didn't matter, I thought he was cute. Word got around in customer service and my other co-worker, Chris, wanted to help Bryan and I get together. We devised a plan that when I was not at work but Bryan was, Chris would ask him what he thought of me. This was so elementary that I should have just slipped him a note and asked him to mark a box indicating whether he liked me or not. Anyway, Chris said he would call me later that night and tell me what he found out. So I went to the gym and when I got home, I saw that Chris had called me. I called him back and work, and when he picked up the phone, all he said was "Bingo." I was confused because I had no idea what he was talking about. He finally told me that he had questioned Bryan, and Bryan had said something along the lines that he thought I was nice. Chris encouraged me to ask him to coffee or something, but I was pretty shy so I had to work up the nerve.
I don't know how long passed that Bryan and I would work together and flirt but not mention hanging out or anything outside of working together. At the time, I was taking a Spanish class and one of our assignments was to attend a Mexican ballet and write a paper about it. Not being one to do things alone, I decided that now would be the perfect time to ask Bryan to hang out with me. So I went into Dillon's where I knew he would be working that night (stalk much?) and told Chris my plan. Instead of letting me ease into asking Bryan on a "date", Chris yells for Bryan to join us from across the floor. Bryan comes over and Chris automatically puts me on the spot to ask Bryan on a date. Bryan accepts. He said he would be going to Baylor, Texas that day to watch K-State play the Baylor bears in football, but he should be back in time.
The day of our date rolls around and I am excited. For whatever reason, I was in Wichita for the day visiting family or something. I look at my phone in the afternoon and see that I have a voicemail from Bryan. He called to say that he and his friends had a flat tire in Oklahoma on their way home, and he was trying to make it back to Manhattan in time for our date. I was crushed. I was sure that he would not make it. My mom encouraged me to drive back to Manhattan and get ready like I normally would to go on a date. I took her advice and went on home. The entire time I thought I was setting myself up to be stood up. So when I got home, I got ready, put on the new dress that I had bought that day especially for this date, and waited. Bryan called about half an hour before we were supposed to meet and suggested that I meet him at the auditorium since he was running behind.
We met like we planned and went inside to witness the most odd ballet either of us will probably ever see. It wasn't so much a ballet as it was watching traditional Mexican dances. At one point, all of the dancers came out in gigantic paper mache heads that were supposed to represent all the different cultures of the world. One stood out in particular. It was supposed to represent the Middle East, but the face looked like a gigantic Osama Bin Laden head. What was funny was that we both noticed it and mentioned it at the same time.
After the ballet, we went and had dinner in Aggieville and then sat in City Park and talked for a while. It was one of the best nights. What I remember most was wondering if he would hold my hand or kiss me. He did neither of those things. At first I thought it was kind of weird, but then I realized that it was actually very gentlemanly of him.
We hung out for a few more weeks before we started dating. The day he asked me out, I had gone to the K-State vs. OSU game with my friend Alex and we met up with Bryan at Buffalo Wild Wings afterward. Some of Bryan's friends had asked him to go see the movie "The Departed" later that night and he asked me if I wanted to go. I said yes, but it would be weird with Alex there, so we had to politely tell him that we had made plans to go out together later that night. I think Alex had a crush on me, but that didn't matter at the time because obviously I liked Bryan. That night I met Bryan's very good friend (and now a friend of mine as well), Jay. We watched the very light-hearted and romantic *sarcasm* movie. Afterward, Bryan and I got into my car and I started to take him home. He was being unusually quiet so I said "Penny for your thoughts?" Trust me, I can be cheesy with the best of them. I handed him a dime, realized it was a dime and not a penny, took it back, and then gave him an actual penny. He said that he had been thinking that it would be nice if we were a couple. I said yes and the rest is history.
Bryan hung onto that penny that I gave him for year and a half until we got engaged. The day we got engaged was the day of the big KSU vs KU basketball game. Everyone knew that this was a huge game because this was the year we were going to beat KU with our amazing basketball team. We had planned on skipping our last classes in order to stand in line with all of the other fans. Bryan was going to pick me up and we were going to meet his friend Gabe in line. I left work and went home to change clothes before Bryan showed up. I happened to be on the phone with my best friend Jenn when Bryan showed up to get me. I told her I would call her the next day and hung up. Bryan asked me if we could make a stop before the game. A few blocks from my house, there is a road that you can take to the top of this hill where they spell out "Manhattan" in big white letters. This seemed like an odd thing to do right before the game. I wanted to stand in line to get the best seat, and Bryan was taking me to the top of the hill? What was up with that. He took me to the side of the hill that overlooks the K-State campus and you can see the coliseum where everyone was lining up for the game as well. He had me stand on a huge rock and pointed his arm out over my shoulder in front of me. I thought it was pointing at the line of people waiting to get into the game. I kept telling him that I could not see what he was pointing at. He told me to look closer. Once again, I said I could not see what he was pointing at. Finally my eyes focused on his hand where he was holding a penny. He asked me if I knew where that penny was from. I said that it was the penny I gave him when he asked me out. He then helped me down from the rock, grabbed a rose from said rock, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. We have differing ideas of what happened at that moment. I will stand by my story that I was not laughing, but half crying, half laughing. I was crying because it was emotional, and laughing because I did not see this coming at all. Obviously I said yes, and we have been married for a year and a half.
These are stories that I will never forget. These are also stories that I would want to pass down to my children and then tell my grandchildren. Part of our stories at work today dealt with how our grandparents met and how we do things differently now than how they did them then. My grandparents on my mother's side were married after a very short time of dating. They eloped and no one knew that they were doing it. They were together for almost 60 years before my grandpa passed away five years ago. Unfortunately, I do not know much about my dad's side of the family and how my granny and grandpa met because he passed away when my dad was younger. If things had turned out differently, I am sure that they would have lived a very long life together.
All in all, what I really want to say is despite whether it is Valentine's Day or just a random Tuesday, you should celebrate the people you love, and tell them that you were just talking about how much you love them.
-Dusti
