About Now, Only Seven Years Back

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who had to live with her dad because she had a baby while in college, was not making a whole lot of money, and getting no child support (and never did for that matter).

It was January of 2001 and she got a job working for Chicago Visitor Information and met a man (seven years her senior) who also worked in Chicago Visitor Information. She loved everything about him. Every Thursday, the only day they worked together, he would bring her (and everybody else, but she pretended it was just her) a copy of the new Chicago Reader and always sang, "I'm picking out a Reader for you, not an ordinary Reader will do!" to the tune of the Thermos song from The Jerk. She loved that.

But alas, he wouldn't date her. He had dated some wack-a-doodle at his last job that inevitably made him leave, and he didn't want to leave this much better job because he dated another nut-job. He told her he just "wanted to be friends" because she was really nice. He told co-workers he couldn't date the girl because she had a kid and he hated kids.

So they went to movies alone together (as "friends") and went out together with other co-workers. He met her kid at a work picnic and liked that he wasn't a "whiny brat like most kids of single moms" (his words not hers).

The girl tried to be as witty as possible and wowed him with her ability to make obscure and dorky references. He laughed hysterically when the 500,000th tourist told her it was hot in the visitor center and she told him it was because they were making soylent green and the tourist said, "Oh, and it needs to be hot to make that?"

She loved him. She decided to pull out the big guns. So one day at work, she showed him her bra. She didn't yank up her shirt and flash him (come on they were at work) she just unbuttoned a couple buttons of her work shirt and let him look down at them. It was a pretty bra, dark purple and made out of a t-shirt material, but let's face it she had fabulous breasts and that's what really changed his mind.

He claims it was because he liked her daring. She knows that it was because he was in a two year dry spell and hadn't seen a breast that wasn't on a screen for a long time. In any case, he decided he would go for it, but didn't tell the girl.

So on a couple of their "friend" outings he made some pitiful attempts at come-ons, that she always missed (because they were pathetic). And finally, when watching videos, she decided that she only lived once and stopped being scared and sat down practically in his lap and kissed him. Four months later they were engaged. A year and three months after that they were married.

However, what we are celebrating is the girl showing off her bra, because let's face it, if she hadn't done that, they'd have never gotten anywhere.

Seven years ago, around this time, I showed Mr. H. my bra, which set off a series of ambiguous get-togethers that depending who you ask may-or-may-not have been dates that may-or-may-not have been our first date. There is the trip to the Brew and View to see Big Trouble in Little China (and the Mummy 2 accidentally), in which I was super sick that I backed away from him when he tried to kiss me.
The game night with co-workers when he put his hand on my back during Taboo and I later drove him home and he tried to hold my hand right when we got to the S-curve on Lake Shore Drive.
The night he came to watch the Pee-Wee Herman Show and Kiss Me Deadly at my house and was too afraid to do anything.
So these are the disastrous first dates that somehow magically began the magic love story of Woodlandmama and Mr. Hobbitfeet. It's amazing that we got anywhere.