Casual Disregard At First Sight

I Do Not Know How We Ended Up Together
But This Is How I Remember It

So I mentioned the other day that Ward introduced me to The Smiths. But upon reading my post again I felt that I may have given the impression that when Ward and I met it was sort of love at first sight so I thought I would share the story of how me met, for those of you who may not already know.

A long time ago, in what now seems like a galaxy far far away, my sister and I threw a party. Our father was away on business, we were young and much too wild for our own good. The party lasted three days. I was 14 or 15 at the time, I don’t remember. I was pretty young and so was my sister, not even 18 and we had a party at our house that would give many parents a heart attack. It was just that bad. The first night we had high school friends come over as well as the heavy metalites from our hometown show up. It was pretty scary, actually. One of the guys kept brandishing a weapon that he later stored in my sister’s wicker hamper for safe keeping. I think he was only trying to scare us, but he succeeded. And he stayed the whole three days. We just couldn’t get the guy to leave.

I think it is important to note that we were wild and naïve but my sister and I escaped the teens years virtually unharmed (though maybe a little cynical)and we never did heavy drugs or slept around. We were raised by people who told us like it was and the unintended result was to scare the dickens out of us so we smoked nothing and slept with no one. Drinking though, drinking was another story. I am just being honest. Again, my sister pretty much escaped that one too but I didn’t. I drank more before I could drive than I have since I turned 16. But I have NEVER EVER EVER driven drunk. I have a mother who taught me a lesson about drunk driving before I was old enough to drive. When I was 13 my mother got her license for the first time in her life and six months later got a DUI and then another one while on restriction with the first. So again unintended result was a lesson about drunk driving. Thanks, Mom!

So my sister was in a band at the time. You know one of those garage bands that is really a basement band because no one in the band has a home with a garage? Anyways, she decided on the second night to invite her band mates over. They came. They didn’t really seem to mesh well with the metalites.

One of her band mates I instantly found attractive and did my best all evening to flirt with. He was older than me and had long hair, two things that I was drawn to at the time. He was wearing a t-shirt for a band I had heard of and I made a mental note to go back and listen to the album again (I just don’t like Dinosaur, Jr. even though ‘Feel the Pain’ isn’t all that bad a cut). He was, I suppose, what they called ‘grunge’ at the time. He was in a rock and roll band. I thought it was love at first sight. He had come along with a friend. I didn’t think much of his friend at the time, though he too was older and had long hair.

So I spent all evening flirting with this long haired Mascis’ fan, he was quiet and had a beautiful nose (I am ridiculous and there is no rhyme or reason for whom I find attractive, but long hair and noses are a weakness of mine, I HEART Adrien Brody). Anyways, he turned out to be one of the biggest jerks I have ever known in my life and I had the luxury of knowing him for another decade or so. The other guy was pretty rude, slightly annoying and reminded me of Gavin Rossdale of Bush, they had just put their first album out(I was the first but nowhere near the last person to make that comparison by the way). I thought he was a jerk. He thought I was a brat. We’ve been married now for almost 7 years.

A lot has happened between that first night and today but the story is perhaps a lot more long winded then I remembered when I began this post. I should probably stop there for now. The funny thing is, it was definitely NOT love at first sight for either of us. It wasn’t even casual acceptance. And he definitely didn't lend me any Smiths albums for quite some time.

When Cooper and Bailey get older they are probably going to ask how we met. I am thinking of telling them the story of Rapunzel. That just seems easier and I mean, I did have long hair back then.

-june


How I Met Your Mother.

Alright, so I was in a band, on this much we can agree. I had joined a band a few months before because the drummer and I were friends from another band, and for some reason which I can't remember they needed me for something. There was a singer in this band, a girl who never came to practices, and is now my wife's sister.

Anyway, one time, after she had finally come to practice and I had met her, she was telling the whole band that she was having a HUGE party on the upcoming weekend and that we should all come. It was going to be so awesome, their parents were gone and her and her sister were throwing a massive three day bash. Well, there wasn't anything much to do so that drummer friend of mine and I decided to go to this party. We weren't very excited, you see she lived in a place where we didn't like to go, a very backward place were the local inhabitants reminded us slightly of the Deliverance cast. I can't remember exactly, but it must have been a very dead weekend.

But we went. We got there and the place looked like Lollapalooza had just left. I think that one of the couches was still on fire. We sat on the other one. There weren't many people there, but the ones that were... Oh, the ones that were. We sat down, and I could tell that my drummer friend felt a little uneasy, so I tried to break the ice with some of my time-tested award-winning wit and charm.

So as it turns out Rednecks can't really understand sarcasm, and are completely unable to laugh at themselves. I could have been killed I suppose (I didn't know that the big maniacal metal head really had a gun), but I couldn't help but notice (and point out) the similarities between this crowd and Beavis and Butthead.

So we stayed awhile, made no new friends, and left the same way we came. Which is not sure that we should have been there. The End.

Oh, you wanted to know about how I met my wife? Well, she was the singer's little sister. I think that she was 15. I know that she was unfriendly. At the time I thought that she wanted to kill us, but I've learned since then that that's just the way she likes to look at me. She had long straight died black hair and wore a black shirt and basically fit in well with the metal-heads. She mostly paced around or sat on the arm of some smouldering furniture, trying to top my sarcastic remarks with rude comments and evil stares. You could even say that she gave me the 'stink eye' all night long. I think she had the hots for my drummer friend. Everybody else did.

I don't think that we exchanged a single kind word that evening, but as fate would have it, we ended up together for the long haul. Now that I think about it, maybe it's because no one else could stand either of us.

-Ward


June's Rebuttal

I really have no idea how we ended up together!

That band mate of your's has always been my sister, that didn't just happen.

First off, my parents were gone because my mom had abandoned us and my dad went out of town unexpectedly and it was Frbruary and we had snow and school was closed from Tueday on the rest of that week. She called you and you guys came running on short notice that Wednesday night.

That drummer friend of your was pretty hot, if only his good looks were matched with his treatment of other people, something could have evolved there, but alas, he is and has always been more pompous than you.

I didn't have my hair dyed. That was later. And if I looked at you funny it was because you were insulting an armed maniac. I was trying to tell you to shut up, I may have even saved your life.

I don't think that we exchanged kind words for quite some time.

We are together for the long haul because Ward pays me very well to be his nice and obedient wife. He docks my pay if I give him the stink eye.

Ward's Rebuttal

So it was a Wednseday night, that's why there was nothing better to do. Makes more sense to me now, but I can assure everyone that no one comes running to a party in HogTown. Unless maybe their from there.

Thanks for saving my life, but if you knew that that idiot had a gun why didn't you call someone? Like maybe 911.

"Hello 911, what's your emergency?"

"Beavis is in my house, and he's got a gun!"

I'm sure they would have sent someone to investigate. I've seen those movies about teen parties.

And, your sister was not my wife's sister until I married you. And as everyone can tell, we still don't say kind words to each other. We try not to even use them around each other. By the way, you've violated our non-disclosure agreement so you owe me everything I've ever paid you.

-The Cleavers