When Mommy Met Daddy: Part 1

Picture me – just out of college, in my first job after college.  Enjoying my life as a young 20-something girl.   Need a visual?

That’s me… and my bestie June.  And this is just one of many nights we got totally hammered together.  But don’t get me wrong.  Life wasn’t all booze and friends.  A lot of my life revolved around work, and living in an area where I knew almost nobody.  You see, I lived just outside of Baltimore almost my entire life, then went to JMU for school.  After school, I got a job in Northern Virginia and moved there.  I threw myself into my job because it’s all I had.  And in just 2 months I got my first promotion.  I got something small like a 3 or 4% increase and I went from a glorified admin to help desk.  I was proud of myself.  Proud that I made it obvious that quickly that I deserved better (and I totally did).  So I moved onto the help desk.

It was standard practice in our company that when someone new began working you’d introduce them to the entire Operations staff.  One day, A was brought around.  I remember being introduced to him, but I was on a call and too busy to give him much attention.  What I did notice… was that he was cute… except for the giant scar he had running across his forehead.  For a couple days my 2 close co-worker friends and I talked about if that was a scar from brain surgery… and if it was appropriate to ask about it.  We decided it wasn’t and kept our mouths shut.  Over the next few days A started training, and tried to get to know the team a little more.  As it turns out, the scar was from his kitten (Bluetooth) and not in fact brain surgery… though I swear to you that’s what it looked like.  This was the deepest, longest, straightest cat scratch I’ve ever seen.

Now we get to the part where I tie this post together.  I was a young, 20-something girl that liked to drink and didn’t have many friends in the area.  So because of that, I frequently organized “work happy hours” which frequently turned into all night affairs if it was a Friday.  One of my friends, K and I planned one such event.  A wasn’t at work that day (he was part of a team that supported a 24×7 desk and had the day off because he was working the weekend) and we agonized about inviting him.  Neither one of us had ever mustered up the courage to ask him for his phone number… but we had it available because of the work phone list.  Finally I made a rash decision and texted him “Hey it’s Beth, K and I are headed to ______ for happy hour.  Feel free to join us if you’d like to!”  And join he did:

To be continued….