THE STORY OF US (Part II) - Arrested Development

My dear friend, Linda, from Crone and Bear it tagged me to do a Love your spouse story. I’m embarrassed to say that it was probably about a month ago. It’s not that I didn’t want to do it, I just wanted to be sure that I took the time to give it the proper attention. After twenty-eight years of marriage, if you decide to tell your story, it should be something special, right? Of course this caused me all sorts of anxiety as I crumbled under the pressure and did what I always do in this situation: I procrastinated.

Finally I decided that enough is enough and opted to just continue the story already in progress. I met My Harley Stud when I was ten years old. It’s a long story. I couldn’t possibly tell it in one post. If I tell the WHOLE story, I couldn’t even do it in 10 posts but I will spare you the details and try to just hit the high points. We’ll see how many editions it takes. Come along with me as I tell how we first fell in “love”.

In Part I, I told you about how I first saw him and developed a crush. And how I fought for the right to be assigned the safety patrol station that he had to pass every day just so I could look at him. Fast forward a few more years. I was in the seventh grade and he was an eighth grader. I have to be honest here and admit that I don’t really remember how it happened. I just remember that all of a sudden, he was walking me home from school. And yes, he did sometimes carry my books. I still have my diary from those days and a smarter girl would have reviewed before writing but I’m a smart mouth, nobody said I was smart.

Summer arrived and we said goodbye to books and hello to shorts and bare feet. Well, my feet were bare. MHS always wears shoes. The park was the place to be every evening in the summer time. There were little league baseball games and it seemed that every kid in town would be there. We seldom watched a game but instead would gather in crowds near the swings and just talk or try to hang with the older kids who had cars and would scoop the loop as my mother used to say.

Our home town is a small town with about three thousand people. It sits in the middle of some prime farmland and many of our friends and schoolmates were farm kids. One of my good friends lived on a farm outside town. She came to stay with me for a few days. We had big plans to hang with MHS and his friend who conveniently was my girlfriend’s beau.

I had a neighborhood friend who was a few years older than us and she invited us to her house for a sleep-out. A sleep-out is a sleep-over but outdoors, under the stars. It was a great way to sneak out to explore the town and get into mischief enjoy the great out-doors. Farmgirl and I were excited to hang with the older girls. It didn’t take long to realize that once we were in sleeping bags, the older girls had invited boys over to join them. It was more than a little awkward for Farmgirl and me.

Fortunately for us, we had mentioned to MHS and his friend what we were doing. We didn’t invite them to join us. But being the horny hopefuls knights in shining armor that they were, they came to rescue us from a very uncomfortable situation.

We were a little young to be gettin busy in a sleeping bag so we settled for sitting and talking in one of the older boys cars that was parked in the doctor’s office driveway down the ally. MHS and I fought a lot back then. (I guess this was a good thing because we rarely fight now. We got it out of our system early.) I have no recollection of what triggered our little spat that night but we began to argue. I got mad and got out of the car and stomped back to my sleeping bag. MHS was way too proud to come crawling after me but this left our friends to entertain MHS instead of staring into each other’s eyes and squelched any possibility of getting in some quality smooching.

MHS’s friend took the bull by the horns and came down to where I was snuggled into my sleeping bag trying hard to put a curse on MHS with my underdeveloped superpowers go to sleep. He pulled me out of the sleeping bag, picked me up, threw me over his shoulder and carried me back to the car. It was no easy task as I was kicking, punching and screaming all the way. He pretty much threw me into the backseat of the car where MHS was pouting waiting.

The goo-goo eyes resumed in the front seat while MHS and I sat giving each other the stink eye with our arms crossed, each leaning as far as possible into the armrest of their respective side of the car. This continued for about ten minutes when a police car came around the corner. There was a curfew in our town and children our age were not allowed to be out after 11 o’clock without an adult. So we did what any wrong-doing teen would do and we laid down across the seat to hide from the police. It was all in vain though because they already knew we were there. Some busy-body neighbor had called the police after hearing some poor, young girl screaming “bloody murder” down the ally.

Book ‘em Dano. We were hauled to the police department. This carried with it the added embarrassment of facing my aunt who worked dispatch. Our parents were called to collect us and we were released into their care with the promise that we would be tarred and feathered appropriately at home.

I was grounded…….for life.

Farmgirl was never allowed to spend the night at my house again. Her parents were convinced I was a bad influence.

MHS’s friend was a spoiled brat and I’m sure he didn’t get in trouble at all.

I think that MHS’s parents (now my in-laws) thought it was funny.

Ahhhh, the difference between raising boys and girls. Fair? I think not.

A few weeks later, MHS went to stay with his cousin in a different town for a few weeks. My father always says, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder………….or you just find someone else.” And I did. I can’t help it. I have a short attention span.

Stay tuned for Part III of the Story of Us coming soon or not so much to a blog near you.