It was the
summer of seventh grade, and my school courageously took 130 or so
thirteen-year-olds on a trip to Washington,
D.C.
Instead of
getting a new one, they distributed us evenly among the other buses. I ended up
on Steven’s.
Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw him. I didn’t know it was him yet, but it was him. He
stood up in his seat and chucked a pop bottle at the person sitting behind him.
A laugh erupted on the bus. The boy popped his head up above the seat once more
and gave a wide, friendly grin at his target and added to the laughter.
It was love at
first sight.
I told a
friend sitting next to me that I thought the boy who threw the pop bottle was really cute.
The friend,
without me knowing, passed a handwritten note in a glass ginger ale bottle
telling him that, if memory serves right, "I think you're cute. Will you
hang out with me at Six Flags? Love, Jolee."
There were a
few other notes passed back and forth in this bottle and soon I caught on and
became excited to get to Six Flags (our much needed break from all the stuffy
history tours).
When we
finally got there, however, Steven was a no show and we didn’t hang out. I
figured that was the end of that.
Of course, it
wasn’t.
After
Six Flags, I sat on the bus waiting to go back to the hotel feeling a
little bummed, but then there he was.
He plopped
down in the seat next to me, and asked what would go down in the books as the
best pick up line ever.
"So,
what's your favorite cartoon?"
Two days later
on June 8, 1999, Steven asked me if I would be his girlfriend.
Ten years
later, he asked me to marry him.
And I did.
