A Guy Walks into a Bar...Our Love Story

It was a few days before Christmas, and I was home from college on winter break. I was at Sam’s doing some last minute shopping when I took noticed of this guy, (full disclosure I LOVE to people watch, but some may argue my people watching is borderline stalkerish, I mean staring haha) Anyway back to the crazy guy, I say crazy because I had never seen a man get SO many things into a cart in such a small amount of time. I first noticed him in the beginning of the store, he had a cart and appeared to be a mission (clearly), and I was just browsing the never ending isles of well, Sam’s Club goodness. I didn’t take notice too much the first time I saw him, but did see him again twice in passing. I curiously watched as each time I saw him, his cart contents continued to grow at an impressive rate of speed. I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or considerably concerned about this man’s shopping habits. As I wrapped up my shopping and got into line, I glanced to the line next to me and, THIS SAME GUY was checking out in the line next to me. By this time I couldn’t help but to really STARE. It hadn’t even been 30 minutes in the store by the time he hit the check out, and he had a full Sam’s car over flowing with goods. It was as if he had just done his ENTIRE Christmas shopping in 20 minutes flat, (turns out he REALLY HAD, he’s THAT guy lol) He also had the most random items strewn with his Christmas gifts (a industrial mop and bucket, what??) I wasn’t sure what to think about this guy, but after all I am curious about everything.. okay, okay you are judging me here, it’s fiiiiine, I would too! haha Anyway he glanced over at me as I probably stared far too long at him and we both checked out and went on our way back to our lives.

Christmas passes and it is a few days after Christmas, my friends and I decide to go out. We were out at local bar, and as we were about to leave I saw this guy walk in with another guy. I sat and stared (there’s that staring again), and realized that I KNEW him (knew of course in the most loose sense of the word). Without hesitation I walked right up to him and said “You’re THE Sam’s guy“, he just looked at me like I was a total crazy person. I just smiled and walked away, fairly certain he had no idea what I was talking about. Not another word was spoken and myself and my friends left a few moments later.

Fast forward about a week or so, and we were out again (okay at this point your thinking is this ALL this girl did? And the answer to that: YES, I went out every chance I could that break and we had SO MUCH FUN! Nothing like that newly 21 out with your best friends from high school kind of fun). We were at a really popular bar downtown my hometown and one of my closest high school friends suggested we go across the street and check out this brand new bar that had just opened. I happily agreed, and we headed there. We walked into the bar and I’m not kidding because I could not make this up, there were two people in the entire bar. A guy sitting at the bar near the entrance and then all the way down at the end of bar, there HE was. Without hesitation I walked right up to him and jokingly said, “you seriously need to stop stalking me.” He laughed and we ended up chatting for as long as my friends would allow (the bar was dead and they couldn’t wait to move on). We exchanged numbers (he owned a car dealership for years and was going to help me find a vehicle upgrade-smooth I know right?) and that was pretty much it for us. We went out the next night and spent pretty much every moment we could with each other from then out.

The entire first year of our relationship was long distance as I was still in college and finishing up my final year. Distance is hard, but anything worth fighting for always is. I think that year made us better looking back. We always joke that fate is what brought us together and I have to agree. It always blows us away to talk about it, because our town isn’t really a “small town” where it’s normal to bump into a person three times in less than two weeks in the most random places. It’s not a huge town, but that isn’t something that happens everyday. The universe was determined that our paths crossed and I am sure glad they did.

We married four years later and have now been married 5 1/2 years. On any given day you can catch us working hard and dreaming big. We dream of selling our home and moving to a warmer climate (Midwest we love to hate you) and talk of it often. Even if we never get to do it, we still love to dream up the endless possibilities.