The Best $10 I Ever Spent

Pooldad's netbook. My broken laptop.
Autopost!

Y'all know I am not a shopper.  I hate shopping.  Even spending $10 bucks is a pain in the patoot, so this post is not about shopping - except for the fact that I may have been inadvertently shopping for a husband without my knowledge.

I have my sister in law to thank for that.  Some of you may already know this story from my old blog, but I like it so much I am posting it again.  I hope you like it too.

It is long, so you may want to grab a beverage of choice and pull up a comfy chair. :)

Here goes!

It is a little detail-y at the beginning but you will see why.....

A year after SR left me, my brother decided to abandon his wife of two years, my best friend, Beth.  She was devastated. We all were.  She is an amazing woman and none of us saw it coming.  When my brother called to tell me he said two things "I am leaving Beth.  You have to tell Mom and Dad."  Nice, huh?  He didn't even have the back bone to tell my parents he had another failed marriage under his belt. I was perfectly clear to him, on the phone, that I would not choose between him and Beth and she would remain my friend.  He could've cared less, but it was the best decision I have ever made.

Beth and I talked daily and I knew how lonely she was, but......five months after he walked out Beth called me and invited me over to her house on a Sunday afternoon to, as she put it, "find us dates."  I told her no way.  I did not want to date, I was too busy working and raising kids and I just didn't need a man in my life right then.  She begged, pleaded, got teary eyed and then promised me Haagen Daas ice cream.  I didn't know what she had in mind but I picked up and went. Haagen Daas, what are you going to do?

When I arrived at her home she showed me this "neat" new feature on her local cable channel.  It was a scrolling list of personals. Like the newspaper ads of the time, but on TV. [This is pre internet gang]  I put the word neat in quotation marks because I am not a personals kind of gal, but for her sake I told her I would go along with it under one condition.  I would write a list of all my requirements and if I didn't find someone that matched every.single.one I did not have to contact any one. She said okay.

I wrote of list of 42 things I was looking for in a man.  I thought I had an ace up my sleeve being so picky and that I was off the hook because no one - NO ONE could meet all 42, right?

Yeah, not with Skippy's luck.  Two matched 41 of the 42.  Funnily enough neither man had listed fishing as a like, but my persistent sister in law convinced me that it would behoove me to call the two that had everything else in common with my list.

Sigh.  The things you do for friendship and to entertain your friends.

If you don't know how personals work you have to call an 800 number and enter a code to leave a message for the person you want to speak to, so I started with the first guy.  The one who didn't end up my husband.  As I am certainly sure he was a nice guy he sounded so creepy my sister in law and I were in hysterics by the end of his message so I just hung up.  I barely worked up the nerve to call the code on the second guy.

Thank goodness I did, because THAT guy was Pooldad.  To say my knees went weak when I heard his voice on the message would not be exaggerating.  His voice could melt butter.  But I kept it cool.  I left a brief message telling him a little bit about myself ending with my phone number and the caveat to "please call after nine pm when I have my two kids in bed."

Although I wanted him to call, I still thought I would get off the hook with the kid line, he wouldn't call and no men in my life for the time being as I had wished.

Fate is too much fun sometimes.

Pooldad called me the following Tuesday evening and we talked for two hours. He explained that he had received another message from a woman before mine and was getting ready to call her, but then he heard my message and called me first.  He said he liked the sound of my voice better than the other woman, whom he never actually did call. But anyhoodle. . . .

We made a date for the following night.  We were to meet up for drinks at a local restaurant at 7:30.  Since this was an actual blind date, we described what we would be wearing and what we looked like.  Taking a chance, right?  Oh, no, no...but wait.

I was a nervous wreck the next day.  After I dropped the kids off to stay with their father I went home to shower and dress. I was so nervous I called Beth [you know, the one who got me into this in the first place?] and told her I wasn't going.  I couldn't do it.  She laughed and told me to get my butt out the door and go or she wouldn't talk to me anymore. She said since I was already ready and had promised I had to go.

So I did.  I was 20 minutes early and found a table in the bar area.  I ordered a bourbon and coke and must have looked incredibly nervous because the poor waitress took pity on me and asked if I was on a blind date.  When I replied yes she brought me a second round on the house.  Fortified with free liquor I began to relax and when I looked up he was walking up the stairs.

WOW.  He was exactly as he said he was.  Height, weight, eye/hair color, but he forgot to mention he was drop dead gorgeous.  I about fell over.  I saw him scanning the bar and a worried look came over his face.  I saw him focus on a woman sitting at the bar who was dressed almost exactly like me, with the same hair color, but a very different body type [much shorter/bustier than me].  I gave a little wave and he noticed me.  A smile crossed his face and he walked over. I could not breath, but managed a small hug and a peck on the cheek.

After an hour I excused myself to go to the ladies room and ran walked to the bank of payphones in the lobby to call my sister in law [pre affordable cellphones] and gushed at how wonderful Pooldad was and to thank her for coercing me into finding him and going on the date.

The date lasted 10 hours. I don't think the guy who served us coffee at TGIF's was too happy to do it for 4 hours.

Needless to say it has worked out pretty darn well. heehee

Oh?  What does this have to do with spending $10 you ask? After we became engaged my lovely sister in law, Beth, presented me with her phone bill from the previous May.  Seems the message I left Pooldad cost her $10 and she was collecting on her matchmaking fee.

I happily paid her.

Truly the best $10 I have ever spent.

[I hit the wrong button and screwed up the auto post - so :P - you get it this afternoon. heehee]