Married Leos

Ok Xbox, I was told you wanted my version of our first date so here we go are you ready?

Ok the King and I worked at the same place for many years. I use to think to myself this guy is either gay or he is the shyest man I have ever come across. For about 8 years or so, we would pass each other in the hall and I would say “hey M” and he would say “hi”. Yes that is all he would say. However I loved the way he use to dress for work, very professional. Dressed to the nines, very sharp. As far as I knew he had no girlfriend but back then it didn’t matter seeing that I was married (YUK!)

Well the year that his BFF was getting married was the year I was single again (YES!) and as far as I was concerned I was done with men, forever. I had two small children and all I was focused on was raising them the best way I could. The girls at work would tell me that they wanted to set me up with some guys they knew but I wanted nothing to do with it. I had even dated an ex boyfriend a few times but then I realized why he was “an ex-boyfriend”. So I swore off men. One sweet elderly lady that worked with us told me “when you are not looking is when you will find your prince charming”. Well I wasn’t looking and I could care less if I ever found him. So it was December of 1997 the King sends me an e-mail and it said: “Hey, you consider me a friend, right?” I reply: “yes, why do you ask?”King replies: ” I want to know if you could do me a favor”. Queen: “what kind of favor?” King: “a friend of mine is getting married and I really don’t want to go by myself, will you come with me”? Long pause from the Queen, I was talking to my friend who was sitting next to me at her desk and told her that M wants me to go with him to some wedding, I really don’t know him other than here at work, what should I do? She tells me to e-mail him back and tell him that you will need to think about it. So I did and I am sure that he was not happy to get that response but none the less he was a gentlemen about it. I tried to get out of it a few days later by saying that I had nothing to wear, he said he would buy me whatever outfit I wanted, he also asked me what kind of perfume I liked, what type of flowers. I was getting nervous. I refused to have him “buy” me anything. So I think it was a week later (could have been a little sooner) he asked if I had made a decision, the girls in the office were telling me to go that M was such a nice person and that they know he wouldn’t try to get to second base because he was not like that. So even though I wanted to say no (because I hated men at this time) I said yes. I went out and bought a dress, a very pretty dress as a matter of fact. So now I had the girls teasing me because I was nervous, I am sure not as nervous as the King was, lol.

So yes he picks me up at my girlfriends house, and here is where I will finally admit that yes I used the excuse that my friend needed to use my car, I just didn’t want him to think that since my kids were spending the night with the sitter that he might have a chance at first and second base. THERE I SAID IT!!

LOL. Anyway the ride to the church was a quiet one, I tried to hold a conversation but I would only get one word answers from him so I decided to stay quiet. I remember the church being nice the mass was beautifully done and then as fast as it started it had ended so back out into the cold we go.

We are heading to the reception once again quiet. Dinner time was quiet, and then the woman that the King says wanted him came to sit by us (she was in the wedding party). She drags the King to take pictures and I sit all alone at the table for the longest time, I said to myself “this is bullshit” I am here as his date and he is off GOD knows where. Ok so now we dance a slow song and that was it the reception was over.

Here goes the long drive home, we talked a little and then once again silence, I actually started falling asleep as he drove me back to my friends house. All in all he was a gentlemen that night and that is perhaps the reason we had a second date. Although I don’t know why he even asked for a second date seeing that he told his mother that he was not going to pursue a second date.

The King had the majority of the story correct he just didn’t have much detail. However he did stretch the truth on one thing, he stated that I was hot, that my friend I am not. Jennifer Lopez is hot, Christina Aguilara is hot, Jessica Alba is hot, but little ole’ me, not by a long shot.

So there you have it my friend, my version of our first date. It was a strange date but I truly believe that he was sent to me by GOD, for he knew that I need a Prince Charming in my life and he was right, and I thank GOD for him every day. He truly is my prince charming.

I have been wanting to post this for awhile now, so at the request of our good friend XBox4NappyRash, I am posting the events leading up to and the day of my first date with the Queen.

I could make something up about it being a beautiful sunny day when I saw the most beautiful woman in the world and I fell instantly in love. But, thats not how it went. Not even close. Although she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

As I may or may not have said in some previous post the Queen and I met at work, we worked in different departments and started about the same time. She was a HOT Hispanic woman and I was the pasty white dork working in the computer department ( an obvious match made in heaven ), we never really had long meaningful conversations but we had known each other for about 8 years nonetheless. Her ex-husband ( AKA Asswipe ) actually bought me a drink at one of the office Christmas parties ( thats a whole other novel ).

Nuff of the particulars. A good ( lady ) friend of mine was getting married and I was in need of a date. For once, I actually had taken the balls out of my drawer and asked a young lady to be my date at the event. She was much younger than I was, of course she worked for the same company, this is relevant because for those who know me its the only female contact I would usually make. I even acquired her services as a date for another wedding a couple months later ( I must have put on the extra big balls that morning ).

As time closed in on the big event she told me she had to work that Saturday. Was she telling the truth? I wanna think she was but something tells me she had forgotten she agreed to go and was just being nice and letting me down easy. Now what was I going to do? Where am I going to find another ( single ) woman to go with me? When I went home and took the balls out of my drawer I noticed that they were single use only. Dammit!! I know, I will tell possibly my best friend at the time that I cannot go to her wedding. Guess what, that didn’t go to well. Her reply ” You BETTER be at my wedding “.

Fast forward a couple weeks of sweating. I am sitting in my office, actually it was a storage closet that we converted into my office. It was small but hey I had a door. Sitting in front of my keyboard I sent the Queen an email, exact wording is sketchy, but I have the basics below:

Me: “Hey would you like to do me a favor?”

Queen: “Depends on what it is.”

Me: “Would you to go to a wedding with me?”

Long pause

Queen: “I don’t know. When is it? ”

Me: “December 6th”

Now I am not sure if she actually answered me right away or if I had to wait a few days but she said “Yes”.

The day of our date she had me meet her at her friends house, she said she was loaning her friend the car for the day. I was thinking, she don’t trust me and don’t want me to know where she lives. I asked her about this and she denied it and still does to this day. : ) We had about a 90 minute drive from her house to the church and I would love to tell you that we had some great conversation, but it was more like listening to a cricket concert. I probably said less than 50 words the entire trip.

The reception came and things got MUCH better, we drank and danced all evening. WRONG!!! It was closer to another cricket concert, it was a good thing that we had another woman sitting at our table that we worked with to kinda help break up the silence. I think I got up from the table 2 times, once to dance with the bride, which was pretty awkward because when we went out there to dance noone else came out there. It was like we had gotten married and it was our first dance. The other time I got up was to take pictures with the woman we worked with that was sitting with us. She had the hots for me, all the single women at that company did, I was just to afraid of them to realize it. Well I might be exagerating abit about them ALL wanting me but I did find out later that she did. I never even took the Queen out there to dance, but remember I am a white boy and white boys have zero rhythm so she was better off not being subjected to that embarrasing scene.

I don’t remember anything about the ride home but I am sure it was an encore of the cricket concert we heard on the way there.

So there it is, our first date, pretty exciting stuff, I know. I bet all you ladies would love to have a first date like that. ; ) It truly is amazing that I actually got a second date after that.

Our first breakfast together came on day we were stranded in the Queens house for 2 days in 1998, as described by my previous post. To fully appreciate this you need to remember that I am Polish/Italian and the Queen is Mexican.

She asked me if I wanted chorizo and eggs, of course I asked “what’s that?”. She said its Mexican sausage. Well my mother used to make italian sauage and scrambled eggs before and I enjoyed it, so why not.

When I have had sausage and eggs in the past it was made by frying up pieces of italian sausage and then putting them into scrambled eggs. So basically it was chunks of sausage in scrambled eggs.

Now for the culture shock. The Queen brings me my breakfast and it looks nothing like what I expected. And where’s my fork?

What I had on my plate looked like some mashed up sausage with barely any type of egg showing and a couple tortillas. I probably looked like a deer in the headlights staring at my plate trying to figure out how I was going to eat this. So I did what every confused white boy would do, I asked for a fork. Of course the Queen laughed at me and said that’s what the tortillas are for and like a little kid she had show me how to eat it ( hangs head in shame ). After the lesson in eating, I did enjoy it. It was spicier than I thought it would be, which is alright since I like spicy food.

10 years later I am a semi-pro at eating with a tortilla and we have chorizo almost every weekend for for breakfast.  Now we normally have it with beans instead of the eggs, unless the kids are eating then sometimes the Queen will either make it with beans for us and eggs for the kids.

This is not about my first sleepover as a child, that I cannot remember. This is about my first night/day stayover at the Queen’s house before we were married.

Let’s roll the clock back to February of 1998, I had slept over at her place a few times in the past, never in her bed, seriously, really, I swear. This was because she lived 35 minutes from me and I really didn’t want to go home after we had been getting it on till 2am. So I would get up at 5am before the Big One would wake up, drive home , shower and go to work. But on this night ( if 2am is considered night ) it was different, I crashed on the couch as usual, but when I woke at 5am and looked outside all I could see was snow blowing sideways. I could barely make out the street from the window, mostly because of the blowing snow but also due to the fact that there was about 6 inches of snow on the ground and the street was covered along with everything else outside. There was NO WAY I was getting home in this. When the Queen saw the snow we both decided to call and tell work we were not coming in. Did I mention it was a Thursday.

During the course of the day the snow continued to come down very hard, noone was going anyplace in the Chicago area. The news was reporting that the expressway I needed to use to get home was shutdown and that there had been people stranded there for over 8 hours not moving. Sure am glad I didn’t try to go home. Over the course of the day, the plows were beginning to make some headway, but the snow was blowing back onto the road as fast as they were removing it and travel times were still about 4 hours to go the 30 miles I needed to go. I was officially stranded.

Friday came and it was still a mess outside, tollway was still in bad shape with accidents all over the road, traffic moving at a snails pace, so we both decided we were better off to just stay home again. I did mention that I went home every morning right, thought so, just wanted to remind you. It is day two and I still have on the same clothes I had on Wednesday. Obviously neither of us were prepared for this, I had no spare clothes with me, and her ex husband was about 9″ shorter than I am, so even if she did have any of his stuff lying around it surely was not going to fit me. I wrapped a towel around my waste as she washed my pants and things and she gave me the biggest sweatshirt she had which was still too small, oh and it had a BIG picture of Elvis’s head on it. I know sexy right.

Saturday morning came around and the sun finally came out and things were beginning to look better, I think we got about 15″ of snow over the two days, plows had the street under control, people were getting around finally. I decided that it was time to go outside myself and dig out the cars and shovel the driveway so I could hopefully get home. While I was outside shoveling I could see the Queen, the Big One and The Boy looking out at me, I think they were laughing at me because of how completely dorky I looked with this big Elvis head poking out from my jacket. After I had been out there about 45 minutes or so the Queen came out, reached up and gave me a kiss and told me for the first time that she loved me.