So. I never told ya’ll the story of how the beau and I met, did I?

Warning! Potential schmoop alert! Also: REALLY LONG POST alert. Evidently I am not that good at self-editing when it comes to schmoopy topics. In summary: Proceed at your own risk.

OK. Imagine it, if you will: 2005. Tom Cruise was jumping up and down on a couch. Gwen Stefani’s shit was B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Katrina was oh so very mean. I’d caught a one-way flight out to California and within a month had managed to find an Actual Job. I know! Employment! Me! California! Me! California! It was a heady time.

I caught a one-way flight back to the east coast to retrieve my car. I packed it as full of stuff as it would hold (which, in a 1993 Corolla, turns out to be, like, three t-shirts and a potted plant) and drove it back to the west coast. Yay!

A week later I was struck with the profound realization that I, at some point, was going to have to stop sleeping on a cot in a friend’s studio apartment. So I signed a lease to rent a room in a house. This was immediately followed by the profound realization that I was going to have to, like, obtain furniture. With which to furnish this room. Another friend of mine recommended that I check out Craigslist. My reaction was: Craigslist? What… is this… Craigslist? Of which you speak?

I logged on and checked it out. Wow! There was indeed a plethora of items for sale! And discussion forums! And … personal ads?

Insert ominous foreshadowing here.

I was at work. Everybody was at a conference except me. It was a Friday. I was tired of tracking meaningless data in Excel sheets. I hadn’t yet signed up for a Gmail account, which meant that the option of wasting an afternoon G-chatting with friends did not yet exist. Basically, I was looking for a good diversion.

And lo, here it was. I floated around from section to section, but the men seeking women page was especially riveting. Post content ranged from egotistical head cases to wounded, accusatory rants. There were also an alarming number of rich, older men propositioning college-age girls in return for being their sugar daddies. Oh, the creepiness! I could not tear my eyes away.

Well, maybe I could. I went away for a while to do something, I don’t know what. Maybe actual work? I came back and refreshed the Craigslist page. And there, at the top, was a new and mysterious post. The title said something like Girls Like Skills. Sketchy, right? The listed age was 24, which — hmm, was the same as me. I warily clicked the link. He bragged of his bo staff skills and computer hacking skills, mentioned he was training to be a cage fighter, and that he’d caught a delicious bass. Yeah. The entire ad was Napoleon Dynamite references. Seriously. And I knew this only because I’d just rented* Napoleon Dynamite a few weeks prior.

I was feeling bold. I opened an anonymous email account, and, using a Google search of movie quotes to guide me, wrote this:

I’m awful at playing dodgeball, but I’ve got some bad-ass cake building skillz. I like to drink 1%, but I could be drinking whole if I wanted to. My hair isn’t long enough to be in a ponytail right now because it gets in my way when I’m making all these illegal ninja moves I learned from the government. I can also take photographs that make you feel like you’re weightless, in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by tiny little sea horses.

I signed off with no name, only a smiley face. You know, a little nod at how clever we were. That I was in on the gag.

I clicked send. I logged out of my new, anonymous account and proceeded to forget about it for a while. When I finally logged in again, there was an email awaiting me. The dude had written back, saying that he originally ran the ad as a joke, but that he had been surprised to get some actual responses. He also said that out of all the responses he had gotten mine was the funniest, and so, um, that was cool and to feel free to write him again. If I wanted to.

So I responded, sure. Why not? I was young, in a new city, didn’t know people. I wasn’t looking for a relationship, so there was nothing to get caught up in. I figured the worst that could happen was that it would be a weird thing that would fizzle out.** The best thing that could happen was that I could meet a new friend. Maybe more? Who knows? I didn’t care, I just wanted to have some fun. Permit me to remind you, after all, that as the sage Gwen Stefani pointed out, this shit. It was bananas.

We exchanged a couple of emails, then a phone call. Then one weeknight we met up to get some drinks and play pool. A casual thing.

That night was five years ago today. And this is the last year we’ll celebrate April 13th as our anniversary.

So tell me.*** How did you meet your favorite person?

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* There were these days? I used to go to this thing called a video store? And rent movies? Stop laughing. It actually happened.

** Either that, or he was definitely an axe murderer. This was my mother’s opinion on the matter, at least.

*** Congratulations on making it all the way through this big messy post, if you’re still here, by the way. For your efforts you win… ummmm… nothing. Sorry! Better luck next time. Also: I love you.