Husband Clothes

I had the most interesting flashback this morning while taking my morning walk. I stopped off to get a free city paper, and while still walking, I opened it up to see if there’s a nice, juicy classifieds section. (I’m not looking for anything–I just love classifieds.)

Flashback to the year 1997. I was sitting at my Dad’s  kitchen table, reading coffee, reading the classified section. Background: I had moved in with my Dad about 2 months prior to this, upon returning after living and working for three years in Moscow, Russia. (One day I should post about that. Wild times. Anyway, my Dad wanted me to get a good job in the US–rather than going to another country to live, which I almost did, long story–so he let me stay there for free. And my Stepmom did too. So kind.)

Anyway, I’d never lived in the area where my Dad lives. So things felt lonely. The only people I could potentially do things with were coworkers (nearly all of my coworkers were guys) who asked me to go to lunch or happy hour, or acquaintances from college who lived in town. There was no way I was going to go to happy hour with male coworkers. I did that in Moscow and caused HUGE issues. I later learned that to many Russian males, happy hour, dinner, or even lunch qualifies as a DATE. So apparently, I DATED about 5 coworkers simultaneously. SO SORRY I didn’t realize that.

Anyway, due to loneliness when back in the US, I loved looking through the classified section of the Saturday newspaper. I especially loved looking for Russian jobs and cultural activities. It listed all of the activities going on in town over the weekend–cultural activities (my favorite), hobby-related things, live bands and where they were scheduled to play, and so on. Of course, I never went to any–no one to go with.

Well, one morning I saw an ad about a “Russian festival.” Basically it was a Russian cultural event–a little gathering where people could buy Russian food, Russian books, Russian CD’s, and so on. I really wanted to go–but no one to go with…Then, out of the blue, one of my acquaintances called me and invited me to go with her to that very Russian festival. That worked out nicely.

At this point, you may be thinking that I am really pathetic to have flashbacks about classified ads. But wait–there’s more to this ad than meets the eye!!!

So this girl and I go to the event. We sat at a random table to eat lunch. There was this somewhat psycho guy talking to us. He was asking me where I went to church, and then, kept insisting that I should attend church regularly–that was kind of alarming. Also awkward was the fact that I sat right beside a cute guy. I kept feeling like he might think I sat there in order to meet him, but really it was because there were no other seats.

I kept wondering if the cute guy noticed that the psycho guy was lecturing me about church. And, if so, what kind of impression this made on him. I later learned all kinds of things about both the psycho guy and the cute guy. Guess why. That’s because the cute guy ended up being my husband. And after that festival, times were no longer lonely. (But hard in many other ways, and wonderful in many ways.)

PS. My husband isn’t Russian. I wish I could tell you what country he’s from, but it’s so small that if ONE person from there saw this blog, everyone in the entire country would immediately learn about it through the grapevine, including my mother-in-law. It would not behoove my marriage for her to see my stories about her–though they are all her own wicked fault.

Filed under: First Years of Marriage, Uncategorized