Love at first Sight

Fifteen years ago. Can you believe it?!? I know, me neither. I remember a time when I could not imagine being able to say "Back 10 years ago when we did...." but now it has been 15 years since I met my husband. Yesterday was the 12 year anniversary of our marriage. So, you ask, what was happening 15 years ago?

I was a shift manager at Taco Bell at the ripe ol' age of 21. It was fall, maybe September(not sure exactly) and I worked the night shift. When I arrived at work around 5 pm, there was a new guy on the line making tacos. "Ok, you've got your hat on backwards?!?" Yep, that is the first thing I ever said to my husband. On my shift I expected people to wear their uniforms correctly, no untucked shirts and no backward hats. You have to understand, I went to Perryton High school. We did not have uniforms but we had about the strictest dress code in the Texas panhandle. Of course while I was in school I griped about that as much as the next guy but now that I was older (ya know-all of 21 years old now) I appreciated the fact that when our school took trips for drama or band or whatever, you could always tell what students were from Perryton because we were about the only ones that did not look like a bunch of thugs so I carried that same philosophy into my job. Anyway...back to Taco Bell...So Monty, being a new employee just working a second job in the day, turned that hat around and he tells me now that is when he fell in love with me. After that things get a little fuzzy. Not fuzzy because I don't remember but fuzzy because the events all seemed to have happened so fast like within a matter of days. The next thing I knew was we were laughing and joking together, he tickled me ALOT, and he started coming through the drive through late at night to get a Mt. Dew on his way to work his other job (he worked over night as a manager at Mcdonalds and I guess they didn't have pop over there or something:)). We started telling everyone at work that we were getting married. They all laughed because we had seriously only know each other a few weeks(or maybe even just days) and had never gone out or anything. I remember talking to my friend Kelly about it and she asked if I was serious. I told her that even though I did not understand why, if he was serious I would have totally married him right then. One little problem was that I was kinda in a relationship already. It was a BAD one. There was some abusive behaviour involved and I had been trying to get out of it. I had already made plans to move home with my mom (2 hours away) to make a clean break and start over at the end of the month. One night I walked down to the payphone at my apartment building and called Monty at Mcdonalds. We talked on the phone until about 6am while he was working. The late night phone calls became a nightly routine and he finally asked me out on a date. It was October 8, just 6 days after my birthday, and he took me bowling and to an arcade (where he won me a cute little stuffed monkey) then dinner at Bennigan's (where he had them sing happy birthday and bring me cake) and then to a movie. We had been together almost all day and still were not ready for it to end so we ended up sitting in Mcdonalds parking lot and just talking until the wee hours of the night/morning (NO! There was not even 1 little kiss in case you were wondering!!). On October 14, on one of our late night phone conversations, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I explained that I was moving soon and long distance relationships usually don't work but he was sure that it would. I wanted to be sure that I was not just looking for a rebound guy but everything in me said that this was for real so I said yes. My last day at work was October 18 and he brought me roses. I took a vacation to Amarillo for a week to hang out with my best friend for a while and could not stop talking about him or thinking about him the whole time. When I got back to the city, I had about 2 days before my mom came to pick me up with a trailer for all my stuff. I moved away and we started writing letters and cards. I got a card almost everyday and I remember one day that I got 5 (of course I still have every single one of them in a notebook:)). We made each other a tape recorded letter so we could hear the others voice whenever we wanted. He did not have a car when I left but in January he bought a pick-up and drove down for a visit. He came every couple of weeks after that even if he was only able to stay a few hours. We did that until August when I was back on my feet, having paid off my bills, and able to move back to Oklahoma City. Three years after the day he asked me to be his girlfriend, we went to the courthouse and got married(it was easier that way since there was still some opposition from our families about the whole inter-racial thing). Well, now here we are...12 years, 1 mortgage and 3 kids later and I have to say....I LOVE that man!