The Meeting

     It was the day after Christmas in 1989.  I had only lived in Clinton, IA since the first week of November and had just moved out of the motel into my first apartment in town.  I was the store manager of Farm & Fleet at age 25 and was single.  One of the many veteran employees of this store felt so sorry for the young single store manager who was new and knew no one in town around the holidays.  Barb had just seen her neice over the holidays who also happened to be 25 and single. She took it upon herself to play matchmaker and try and help two young single people make new friends over the holidays.

     My assistant manager, Bob, and I had a habit of some how connecting at the front of the store to "check out" the chicks as the came into our store.  Much to our wonder, delight and excitement, in came a vision for both of us to behold.  This was the woman who would eventually become my wife.  I saw her first as she walked in the door.  She had on a very fashionable long, black coat, big '90's hair and an angelic face with a beautiful smile.  I elbowed Bob and said to him "Hey, check out this one.  Way out of my league."  We both watched her as she went on back to the Housewares department.  The next thing I heard was a page from Barb in the Housewares Department.  I said to Bob, "Hey, maybe she's calling me back to hook me up with the beauty queeen."

     As I turned to go down the aisle, I was stunned to see Barb standing with that very beauty.  I'm sure my eyes  popped out of my eye sockets.  I know my heart started pounding.  My hands instantly became clamy.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  The very girl who I just kiddingly said to Bob that was out of my league was actually standing before me waiting to be introduced to her by her Aunt Barb.  I was extremely nervous and so excited to meet this vision of beauty.  Barb made the introductions and I totally lost all control and couldn't remeber a thing that was just said, including the name of this girl that I couldn't believe that I was meeting.

     Some how after shuffling my feet and bouncing around nervously for what seemed like an eternity,  I finally mustered up enough courage to ask this vision of beauty out.  Unfortunately, since I was new to town, having only lived in a motel up to this point,  the only place I knew to meet her later after work was that same motel, the Best Western.  I'm sure that sent out some weird signals to her and all kinds of red flags and sirens were going off for this young girl who was approached by this nervous weird guy, but she did agree to meet me at the Best Western.

     After I got off work, we did meet at Remmingon's the bar for the Best Western.  After one partially consumed drink and some nervous chatter we decided to leave the uncomfortable confines of a bar...in a motel and we went on a Chritsmas Light ride through the city of Clinton.  After driving all through town, with her navigation, again due to my newness to town, and more nervous chatter, we both seemed to becoming more comfortable with each other.  There was one thing that persistnatly bothered me about our chatter though.  Any time she felt the need to address me during the night, she would call me "Steve".  After several times of this error, I finally decided to correct her error and tell her my name wasn't Steve that it was Scott.
She would not believe me.  She absolutely thought I was kidding and she was absolutely convince that my name actually was Steve.  Finally after pulling out my driver's license to verify that my name was actually Scott, she was convinced.  After we had a nice laugh about that situation I finally had to admit something to her.  I couldn't even remember her first name at all.  At least she had the first letter of my name right.  In the nervousness of the introductions at the store as I was enthrawled with her beauty, and still not beliving I was standing in front of her, I totally missed the part wher Barb told me her name.  After all that time I was flat out too embarrassed to tell her, so I was glad the whole situation came up so I could finally admit I didn't know her name.

\     We finished looking at the Christmas lights and the small talk we were able to generate was enough for each of us to realize we needed to at least have a second date.  I took her back to the motel where her car was.  As she got out of my car she reached down, scooped up some snow, made a snowball and threw it at me while I was sitting in my car.  I had an inkling that this could actually develop into something because later I found out that this sort of playing around was an Abbott form of flirting.  Now after 21 years of knowing each other, I must get a lot of flirting from her because she still palys around with me like that and on occassion, she still calls me "Steve".  I loved that night and many other nights with this beauty ever since over the last 21 years.