Friday, July 16, 2010

A walk down Memory lane. . .

Mark and I met while working together in a local laboratory.  We ran a blood test together.  He was my superior, while we were at work.  HA HA!!  He was the senior lab tech on this particular test.  So I had to follow his instructions.   I got this job right out of College.   In fact, I was interviewing for this job while I was still in school.  It was third shift and my folks were not very happy with me about that.   Because it was a third shift position I had to interview with the shift supervisor during his regular shift.  I drove from school to be at my interview at midnight.  That was strange.  My parents were still not happy about all this.  I told them the reason they did all this on third shift was so that the doctors offices would have their blood results by the next morning to treat their patients.  Where I grew up third shift meant you worked in the mill.  Once my folks got over the third shift thing all was ok.
After my interview the night manager took me around and introduced me to everyone and also introduced me to Mark (hubby).  When we met it was a little strange but I knew when we shook hands there was something there.  I felt my heart fall to the floor and it was hard to breathe.  I know it sounds silly but it is true.  I was so excited about working.  I could not believe I was going to have a job that related to my degree.  So many of my friends were not working in their area of expertise.  I was also excited to have a job of any kind.  I felt like an adult.  I was going to work and I had my own place with a roommate of course.  One of my friends from College was working at the lab too and she needed a roommate.  So that worked out great.  I noticed that when I would talk to the folks at work they really listened to what I had to say.  That made me feel good.  They paid attention to me and always looked me in the eye.  That impressed me.  Here I thought wow, they really care about what I am saying.  
I did not realize what a prankster (Mark) I was getting involved with.  I can't tell  many of them or he might get in trouble but let's just say there was never a dull moment in the lab when he worked.  I found out years after the fact that Mark had told everyone that I had a glass eye.  So when I thought everyone was really paying attention to what I had to say, was in fact them trying to figure out which eye was glass.  We had a rocky start to our relationship.   He had his views on things and I had mine. He was always putting his foot in his mouth.  There was this poor young lady that worked behind glass next to us and we had to go in there to get our samples.  I call her a poor young lady because she had to listen to all of our troubles.  Mark and I both confided in her about our relationship.  Like I said we had a rocky start.   I am very head strong and set in my ways.  Even then I was set in my ways.   Mark was just crazy.  He had made the comment one night that Women were inferior to Men.  Well, that flew all over me and the rest of the ladies that worked in the lab.  We had not officially started dating yet and at the rate he was going we might not.  This is what poor Sally behind the glass had to listen to all the time.  I would go and fuss about Mark and Mark would go and fuss about me.  Finally we were going to go out.  We were going to a concert.  It was a rock concert.  I had never been to a concert before so this was new for me.  I will be honest I did not like it at all.  I put on a good show though because I did not want to hurt Marks' feelings.   Later that week Mark and I were at work and having a discussion over something and our manager came over and said why don't ya'll just date you argue like you're married anyway.  I piped up and said we had already been on a date.  I was referring to the concert.  Mark broke in and said that no, we had not been on a date.  I looked very surprised, and asked what?  You can imagine the conversation that ensued.  I simply told him that he need not worry about ever asking me out on a date that it would not happen.  I was so angry.  What did he consider a date?  He picked me up, he paid for everything, and he took me home.  Date?  Right?  According to MARK, it was not a date.  Poor Sally got to listen to all this for several weeks.  I was dead set we would not be dating.  Well, I gave in and we went on a date.  Well, what Mark considers a date.  We went to dinner and then on a horse drawn carriage ride around town.  This was truly a date.  I cannot tell you how excited I was to do the horse drawn carriage thing.  It was so romantic.  So now  19 years later we are still together.  I guess he has done some things right.  We still argue over the date thing though.  I will never understand that one.

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