Prerequisite to Memorial Day

Usually, people don't meet the loves of their life outside of a Giant Eagle, but in my particular case, that's how it happened. The Stretar's and I had gone to Crocker Park for the day, to do a bit of Christmas shopping before the holidays. When I found out I'd be seeing Mary Murtha that day, I scanned Crocker Park for every reflective surface it had to offer.

Standing outside of the Giant Eagle, I saw a dark green Buick Skylark pull up right outside of the entrance with a pretty young girl in it wearing a green stocking cap with a fuzz ball on top. Feeling as though everyone could hear the butterflies beating their wings in my stomach, I tried to keep my composure as I got in the back seat and tried not to say anything that would reveal how excited I was to meet this Mary girl for the first time.

Leaving Giant Eagle behind, I began talking with Mary. We never talked about anything important, just about school and our majors. Since I was in the back seat, I felt I had developed more a relationship with the rear-view mirror than I had with Mary, because that was the only way we could converse without getting into an accident, which almost happened.

That day, I told Ruth Stretar that Mary was the most genuinely cute girl I had ever met.

Upon our second meeting at few month later at Applebees, Mary was in the midst of telling a joke. And little did she know, but as she told it, I was falling in love. It wasn't the joke that did it, but rather the way she held herself; the way her lips moved as she talked and how she squinted her eyes as she laughed. After the joke, I began laughing really hard, but not from the punch line, but rather because I began realizing that Mary the most perfect woman I had ever laid eyes on.