The Shish-Kebob Incident

If you were with me yesterday, you heard all about how I met MY WIFE, who was then MY (future) WIFE, or MFW for short. If you weren't with me yesterday, you can travel back in time by going here. Go ahead. You can catch up with me down at the second paragraph.

OK. So, I dropped MFW off at her place on Beacon Hill and I drove back to Dorchester. On the ride back, I was pretty excited. I liked her a lot. I was pretty sure she liked me, too. She hadn't said as much - we hadn'’t even had a kiss or anything - but we definitely laughed a lot and I was pretty sure we'd’ enjoy a date outside of the confines of the Adams Heights Mens Club where we had enjoyed not dancing together.

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The next day was Sunday and I had planned a day out with my friend Rich Dahlquist. He was a great guy, and would give you the shirt off his back, but he was also the most viciously sarcastic man I have ever known. If you could take what he dished out, he was one funny bastard. Some folks didn't see the humor. He was kind of like House, but without the medical degree. If you act like that, but you don't save lives? A lot of folks won't dig you.

We were both ex-addicts, if that's a correct term. His problem had mostly been drinking, while mine had mostly been everything else. We enjoyed each other's company - high or sober - so after we both cleaned up, we spent time together doing things other than ingesting deadly substances. We were going to drive out to Springfield and visit the Basketball Hall Of Fame. And so we did. It was an enjoyable time - great place to see, by the way - and after grabbing a bite to eat we headed back to his place in Medford. I remember that night for two reasons.

1) It was the first time I ever saw The Simpsons. Dahlquist was going on and on about how great a cartoon it was and he said that I absolutely had to see it, so that's why I stopped back at his place instead of just dropping him off.

2) While driving to Springfield and while at the Hall and while driving back from Springfield and then throughout dinner, I had been going on and on about this woman I met at a dance last night. Finally, when we reached his house, Dahlquist had had enough. He said, "Sully, you've been going on and on about Miss America all day. If she's so frickin' hot, give her a call, for Chrissakes. But watch this show first. It's the best thing I've ever seen on television."

Well, we watched The Simpsons and I laughed my ass off, so he was right about that. After it ended, I asked Dahlquist if I could use his phone.

"No, I'm waiting for a call from the frickin' president. Of course you can use my phone, you dope. Give her a call."

"Well, I would, but I don't have her number."

"You don't have her number? Smoooooth, Sully. So who are you calling?"

"My mother."

"Your mother?!? Jesus! Why? Do you have to ask her permission to go out on a date?"

"No, you asshole, it's just that she probably has the number."

"Why don't you just look it up in the phone book?"

"I don't know her last name."

"You spent the whole night talking to her and you don't even know her name? Man, you are a stud."

"Her last name, dickweed. It was something completely weird, like yours."

By that time my mother answered her phone. I asked for MFW's phone number and her address, while Dahlquist snickered in the background. Then I told her that I never got MFW's last name. She said it. I asked her to repeat it. She said it again. Then I asked her to spell it for me. That was enough to send Dahlquist into the next room, laughing.

(I would tell you her last name, but the one thing I have promised her about this blog is that I will not reveal her actual identity. She is and will remain MY WIFE. I tell her that she'll be really sorry when this stuff gets made into a major motion picture and nobody knows that it's her up there on the big screen being played by Angelina Jolie, but no go.)

After I hung up, I told Dahlquist that I had had a really good time, considering what a jerkoff he was. He gave me a similar warm farewell and then I drove home, planning to call MFW the next day.

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Well, between the time I dropped her off at her house and Monday evening, 48 hours had passed. That was enough time for me to begin believing that maybe I was seeing things that might not be there. Did she really have as good a time as I had? Was her laughter real? Or was she just being nice to me out of deference to my mother? All that illogical crap started swimming around in my head. So, instead of calling her and risking immediate rejection, I decided to take the coward's way out. I wrote her a letter.

(I told you. My ex dumped me, by writing a "Dear John", and I said I might have done the same thing if the situation was reversed. You didn't believe me, did you? You thought I was just being magnanimous. Nope.)

A major reason why I wrote a letter is because I've always hated the telephone. This comes from a guy who largely makes his living by supplying his voice for use on the telephone - and I would send you to the blog I wrote about that, except that Blogger seems to have eaten it for breakfast. In any case, I've always been more comfortable writing than telephoning. So I wrote the letter.

If I were the type of guy to go through MY WIFE's things while she wasn't here, I'd reproduce the letter in its entirety. I'd bet my left... well, I'd bet she still has it. However, I'm not the type of guy to do that. At least, I'm not the type of guy willing to admit to doing that in a public forum, which she could be reading at this very moment, so I'll try to reconstruct the letter from memory. As I recall, it went something like this...

"Dear MFW:

I had a great time not dancing with you the other night. I think you had just as good a time not dancing with me. I'd really like to not dance with you again sometime. If you think not dancing with me is something you'd like to do again, why don't you give me a call? My number is..."

Yeah, I put the ball into her court.

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I am, without a doubt, one of the most blessed people on the face of God's green earth. Do you have any idea how many people would have made that phone call to me? Would you have made that phone call? Maybe you would have, because you're a nice person - you're reading me, after all, so you must be nice - but the average woman would have crumpled up that letter and tossed it into the trash while cursing me out. MFW isn't the average woman. She called.

Problem was, by the time she got the letter and made the call, I had a toothache. It was a hideous toothache, such as I have been prone to all my life. It's the one pain that can reduce me to a quivering mass of Jell-O. I've broken my finger, broken my thumb, broken my hand, torn cartilage in my knee - there was pain in those things, to be sure, but I could work with it. A toothache? Forget it. I'm useless. Until I get the thing taken out, I can't function. And I was wracked with pain. It was all I could do not to cry as I spoke to her on the phone.

"Oh, hi. Gee, I'm glad you called, but I have this horrible toothache right now. I'll call you back in a day or two, OK?"

Later, she told me that she thought I was giving her the brush off then. Can't say that I blame her; sure sounds like a brush off. She screws up enough courage to call me and then I give her the short shrift like that? Well, sure, I'd still want to go out with me, but who else would?

The next day, I had the tooth pulled. Then I called her back. After apologizing profusely, I made an actual honest-to-goodness date to meet at her place and then go see a movie or have dinner or maybe both. The shish-kebob incident was just around the corner.

Unfortunately, you won'’t get to find out about it until part two. The real world beckons. Sorry! See you tomorrow.

Go to (really) The Shish-Kebob Incident!!!