Love, Soft as an Easy Chair

Last semester I took a course called Oral Interpretation of Literature. Our first assignment was to share a personal experience with the class. I told the story of how Mr. Lolly and I met, and it brought down the house! No kidding, people were rolling in the aisles. I had no idea I was so funny- for a brief moment I considered abandoning elementary education to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. Hopefully, this tale will have the same effect when I recycle it this semester for my Speech class.

Anyway, for those of you have never heard the oh-so romantic tale of how a young Lollybiscuit met the foxy and dashing Mr. Lolly, here it is.

After graduating high school, I spent the next three years at community college. Ultimately, I dropped out of school to take the first in a long succession of low-paying retail jobs. When people ask me if I regret dropping out, I say yes- except for one thing: If I had stayed in school, I never would have met my husband.
Let’s go back in time to February of 1997. Bill Clinton was president, the Spice Girls were on the radio, and X Files was the hottest show on television. I was twenty one years old, working at Borders Bookstore in Farmington Hills. As Espresso Bar Manager (a job title I was inordinately proud of) my responsibilities included interviewing prospective espresso bar employees. It was very difficult to fill job openings at that store. For one thing, the economy was booming, and unemployment was at an all time low. Furthermore, this particular Borders was located in a very affluent area in which the only people applying to serve coffee for $6.50 an hour were high school students, which simply was not realistic for the full time position I had to fill. Naturally, when a decent application came across my desk, I pounced on it. However, I almost did not call this particular applicant. "Look at this one” I said to my coworker Tiffany. “This guy is OLD! He was born in 1967. That makes him almost thirty. That’s so weird! Why does some one that age want to work in the Espresso Bar?” Whenever actual adults applied at our store, they usually wanted to work in the bookstore section. I supervised a staff of high school and college kids, and truthfully, I was not sure how I felt about bossing around a thirty year old man.
Although I do not remember the actual phone call, I remember the actual interview like it was yesterday I was informed that my interviewee had arrived, and I came out of my office to greet him. Wait a second! This couldn’t be right! I was supposed to be interviewing a thirty year old! Who was this dark, handsome, hip looking guy? A few minutes into the interview, we were laughing and chatting like old friends. Kevin told me that he had just moved back from Florida to finish his schooling at U of M. Previously, he had lived in Seattle (which, as some of you may remember, was the grunge music Mecca of the early 90s.) To a young girl who had spent most of her life in Farmington Hills, this was heady stuff, and I was dazzled by his sophistication. By the end of the interview, I wished that I had bothered to put on makeup that morning. However, I was glad that I at least had on a cute outfit- I was wearing my favorite second hand levis, my favorite orange sweater, (which matched my bright orange hair perfectly) and of course, my favorite platform boots. Believe me, the whole ensemble was very 1997. (Years later, when I asked Kevin about his first impression of me, he replied that he remembered thinking my hair was a weird color and that my boots made me incredibly tall.)
I don’t have to tell you that Kevin got the job, and we worked together for the next year. During this time, Kevin dated a few girls, while I already had a boyfriend. Poor Hanley. It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t hold a candle to Kevin, and as time went on I began to compare the two of them more and more. Kevin loved to read! Hanley, on the other hand, never read anything unless it was a comic book. Kevin liked cool, obscure music, while Hanley listened to Ice Cube. Kevin liked foreign films, while Hanley and his friends rented Friday. Kevin knew were all the cool places were in Detroit, while Hanley liked to stay home. Lastly, I doubted that Kevin would ever light his farts on fire the way Hanley did. Sometimes, Hanley would ask me if I thought that the two of us would get married. As I closed my eyes and tried to picture the two of us at the altar, Kevin’s face would always pop into my mind.
Eventually, Kevin and I started hanging out on Fridays. (As the person in charge of the Ebar schedule, I had managed to arrange it so that we both had the same day off!) We would go thrift shopping, out to lunch, or to the DIA. At the end of the day, he would drop me off at home where Hanley was waiting. I justified these outings to Hanley by insisting that Kevin and I were just friends” but I knew that I was completely in love with Kevin. Although I could not fathom that Kevin could ever be interested in me, I knew it was time to put an end to things between Hanley and I. One night we had a heart to heart, and I confessed that I did not love him anymore. The next day, I awoke with a sore throat and a hacking cough, and I called in sick to work. On a whim, I called Kevin that evening.
“I missed you at work today” he said.
“I’m sick!” I replied. “I have a horrible cough!”
“Who’s taking care of you?” he asked.
“No one” I said. “Hanley and I broke up last night. Why don’t you come over?”
Needless to say, he came over that night, and we’ve been together ever since. Today, I am no longer a young girl- in fact, I am the same age as Kevin was when we met- but I am still dazzled by him.