DING-DONG DING-DINNNNG!!!!
"Sweetheart! Could you get that?!" I heard my wife, Jayna holler, "I have my hands full!" She and her little sister, Chloe, were in the kitchen finishing up some appetizers. And whatever else they were planning to serve.
I rolled my eyes, not at the request to answer the door, but at what I was about to have to endure. Jayna had begged me to do a co-ed baby shower. She was far from a traditionalist and often walked in the opposite direction of popular belief. She stood alone, but she most certainly did not stand quietly. I supported her in any direction she chose, but on this matter I had argued with her only to eventually realize I was wasting my breath. How could I ever say no to her? I couldn't. She knew all she had to do was ask and stare up at me with those electrifying blue eyes and her pouty pink lips and I fell weak under her spell. A spell she had me under since day one.
When Jayna and I met, my freshman year of college, we both agreed that fate had a hand in it. It was on a Sunday, a day I usually set aside for rest, but this particular Sunday wouldn't be spent lounging around. I had an interview early Monday morning and absolutely no clean clothes. My laundry was done once a week on Mondays but this specific week I would have to spend my Sunday away from my cozy one bed room apartment and instead at the COIN LAUND-RO-MAT, which was two blocks away from where I lived. The apartment I lived in was close enough to everything that I could walk everywhere, including to the college I was attending to obtain my teaching degree. The apartment was in the perfect location for someone who did not have a vehicle, a gift in which I declined from my parents after graduating high school. Instead, I asked that they helped with my living expenses while I was in school. I really didn't need to get a job but I wanted to start saving money for the day I would eventually buy a car and to have the extra cash to go out like a normal college student.
Since I went to school during the day, I decided to find a part time job at night. There was a small coffee shop close to the college, I had never been in, but every time I walked past it, there was a HELP WANTED sign that hung in the window. The Thursday prior to that Sunday, as I was walking home, I had decided to stop in and fill out an application. I was told to come back Monday to speak to a manager. I thought I had something nice to wear only to realize Saturday night, I didn't have anything clean except a pair of some old gray gym shorts and an old faded Led ZepplinT-Shirt.
I got up Sunday and threw on the only thing I had, looked in the mirror and shrugged my shoulders. I didn't feel I was an ugly guy but I also didn't feel I was the prettiest either. I stood under six feet, with an average build. I had dark, wild hair and intense blue eyes-which I was often complimented on. My lips were full and if you looked close enough I had freckles all over my face. To top it all off I wore black, rectangular framed glasses.
I hadn't had a girlfriend since leaving home, but I was so focused on my education that I didn't care. Most girls that tried to converse with me sounded as though they had peas for brains and so I would quickly dismiss any advances trying to be made. I had long decided my college days wouldn't be spent sleeping with as many women as I could. That set me apart from the crowd, I had no friends except the ones I made small talk with in my classes. Yet it didn't bother me, I kind of enjoyed my own company. And besides if I was to get the job at the coffee shop, I'd have a bit of a social life.
I gathered all of my laundry and was determined to get all my laundry done by lunch so I could have the rest of the day to relax and prepare myself mentally for my interview that next day. The first and only job I had was during my last two years of high school. My dad's friend, Bill, had been the owner of an ice cream parlor and gave me a job without even interviewing me, so I really had no idea what to expect during a formal interview.
