How My Dream Marriage Came To Be
(Please read title with a nice big spoonful of sarcasm).
Story Telling Time. I love to tell stories. Some folks say I'm even good at it.
The lovely Ms Carly asked in her comment yesterday if I�ve ever written about how I met and married Hub. I think I�ve written briefly about it, long ago, but who knows. I am not exactly the queen of organization when it comes to this diary. And with 473 entries so far (this being #474), I�m not motivated enough to go digging around for such entries. So, I�ll just write it again. So, beware, possible redundancy ahead. (�Redundant� is my middle name. I had it changed, it used to be �Danger�).
Where to start? Maybe a little back story?
Back in junior high days, circa 1983-85, Hub�s family lived around the corner from my house. Hub�s older brother Mike was a BMOC at our school, and for good reason. He was fucking smoking hot. (He still is, even though he�s gone bald and is rather short (maybe 5�6�), he�s just got something about him. Maybe it�s the totally ripped body with the big biceps and pecs and washboard stomach (at fucking 37, 38 years old, too). Maybe it�s his eyes, which are an incredibly sexy, intense shade of blue. And? He�s coming up this weekend, sans wife and family, and we are going to go out to the club and have fun and I will oogle this man ad nauseam and if you�re lucky I�ll take pics).
I was one of the girls who crushed on Mike in school big time. Enough that he knew who I was, and would hang out and talk to me in the neighborhood once I was in ninth grade and was finally kinda cute instead of a big, awkward ooftie pubescent. So, I knew him. Well.
In 8th grade, I got friendly with Hub�s sister Tina (who�s youngest kid, btw, I�m babysitting as we speak. I mean as I write). His one and only full blooded sibling (and they�re a whopping 11 months apart). I knew who Hub was through other friends, but I didn�t know him well, just well enough to say hi if we saw each other. Those that know, know Hub�s �real� name is Buck, well, it�s not his real name but that�s how everybody knows him. And he was the only Buck at our school.
So, I�d been pals with Tina for well over a year when I found out she and Hub were brother and sister. Being that I didn�t know Hub�s last name, I had no idea and was kind of surprised. They were total opposites. Tina was hardcore, already into partying and drugs and Hub was nothing like that. (Hub actually was very young looking for his age. Seriously, the pictures he has of him holding newborn Butthead? He was 18 in them and looked about 14).
I can remember asking Tina about it when I found out, �Buck�s your brother?� and she said, verbatim, �I try not to let people know that�. Shortly after, I found out Mike (who�s last name is different) was their brother, too.
That summer, between ninth grade and tenth grade, I got friendlier with Mike since he was always hanging out at the basketball court at a park I went to with my friends a lot. I even dated one of his buddies from the wrestling team, Ken, for a brief time that summer after meeting him through Mike. Ken was a senior, I, an incoming sophomore (at that point, the high school started at tenth grade) who was more than thrilled to date a cute guy with a car, even.
Ken broke up with me after a week cuz I hadn�t slept with him yet. �Everything else but� was not enough for him. Can you believe that? He would have had to wait a whole �nother maybe week to get �it�, I was still a virgin (but not for long). Anyway, I got over that when school started and he began dating the school�s biggest slut. I�m not one to point fingers and call girls sluts, cuz it�s not cool for one, and for two, well, there�s that whole �pot calling the kettle black� thing, but let me tell you, this girl fucked EVERYONE. The football team, wrestling team, baseball, lacrosse, she�d been around. She was beyond my �number� at 35 years old when she was 15.
What a digression.
Anyway, I got to the high school and Mike used me to meet all my cute friends. At first he was after this girl Shannon that I was with. Shannon was fucking beautiful. But, she liked older guys (ie; 21+) from Mass (and got them. She was 15, looked 19, and the guys did not give a fuck about her age). So, Mike was out for her.
Well, then one day I was walking in the hall at school with Mike and my cousin Laurie (a senior at the time, like Mike) walked by and said hi to me and stopped to talk. When she left, Mike was all, �You know her?!?�. And I was like, �She�s my cousin�. He said, �She�s in my English class. You have got to hook me up with her�.
My first thought was that Mike was not Laurie�s type. She was into rich guys, or so it seemed to me. My second thought was to be jealous, cuz that�s how I was back then. But, anyway, I told him I really didn�t talk to her much (because back then I thought she was this prissy, preppie stuck up snob, which turned out to be completely untrue), but I�d say something if I saw her.
I didn�t have to. Two weeks later, they were walking down the hall together hand in hand. They got pretty serious over the next few years, to the point that they were engaged. After graduation, Mike went into the Marines, but they stayed together.
Laurie got very friendly with the whole family. She became every good friends with Lily and was always watching out for Hub and Tina.
So, when Mike turned out to be typical Mike and couldn�t keep his pee pee in his pants and cheated on Laurie (with the woman who became his first wife--and yes, he did the same thing to her), they split up, but Laurie stayed close with the family.
I was able to keep up with Hub and Tina through Laurie. I knew when they had kids, got married or divorced. I always knew what was going on even if I never saw them.
In early 1995, when I was at the end of seeing �The One That Got Away�, Brian, (who�s step daughter, btw, is Minnie�s best best best friend in the whole world), Laurie was working with Lily at some company. Hub had recently split with Shauna, his first wife, and Lily and Laurie were trying to fix us up. I was agreeable to it, seeing as it was not going to work with Brian.
That was on a Friday Laurie asked me about it. Monday morning she called me and said, �Forget it. Buck got himself a girlfriend already�. That was Helen. And don�t think that I don�t love to rub that in his face to this day. �You could have had me, and skipped the whole ordeal with Helen if you�d have just been a little more patient�.
Six months later, Beavis was four and I needed a sitter for him. Through Laurie, I found Hub�s sister in law Julie, who is married to his brother Norman. Julie and Norman are the holy rollers in the family, I haven�t said much about them here. So, I saw Hub at Julie�s every now and then, and even Helen.
Fast forward to 2000. Independence Day from Dick was March 2, 2000. I decided that since he was gone I was going to be a single mom for several years. I just wanted to raise my kids and go to work and just get through a few years on my own. Oh, and then I found out (or, finally acknowledged) I was pregnant with Mickey, and that just solidified my plan to stay single for a few years.
And I�d think to myself, when I finally do get involved, the ideal partner would be a man who was a single dad. I�d had so much trouble dating guys that had no kids (and truthfully, Hub is the only guy I hooked up with who had kids) when I only had one of my own, what would I be up against with three? And like single moms with three kids are such a hot commodity. Well, they might be if they�re reasonably attractive, but this was when I weighed 250+ lbs. So, I thought, I�d like to date someone who�s in the same boat as me, who can relate. (And likes big girls). I had no beefs taking care of someone else�s kids. (I was so na�ve! I had this assumption that other people�s kids come with no baggage! HA! Joke�s on me!).
Well. After three months of blissful single hood, being pregnant and working for a kick ass company (Fidelity Investments, damn I loved working for them), and taking care of my kids and just really, really enjoying not having a violent, jealous, controlling, mean, abusive rent-spending crackhead around, Laurie called me up one day, leaving a message on my machine saying, �I *really* need to talk to you�.
So, I called her back. This is basically how the conversation went:
�So, I was at Lauren�s [her daughter, same age as Beavis and Hilda] dance class the other day. Buck was there with his daughter Hilda. We were talking and did you know him and Helen are getting a divorce?�
Then she went on to gossip about the divorce, and how awful Helen was being, and how Hub wanted to get custody of Daisy, and how he already had custody of Butthead and Hilda, and how he had had this chick Chrissy living with him for a while but that didn�t work out cuz she was just as psycho as Helen�yack yack yack�
�And anyway then he asked me if I knew any normal, single women��
I knew where she was going, and I wasn�t exactly cuckoo for cocoa puffs about it, either.
�So I told him I knew someone, and told him all about you and now he wants to take you out for dinner and a movie at Chunky�s�.
I was all, �Um, first you lied to him about me being normal and you know that. And, hi, I�m pregnant�
�He knows that, he�s okay with it. He has three kids, he�s been with pregnant women before�
Me: �Pregnant with HIS kids. Besides, also, I�ve got the pyscho ex thing going on� (Dick was trying every damn day to get back together with me. It was such a pain in the ass. It was then I discovered that in the �Dump or be dumped?� debate? I�d rather be dumped. AT least you have no choice in the matter but to accept it. Normal people anyway).
Back and forth, back and forth, me resisting and Laurie giving me every reason why I should go out with him. And she was convincing me. �He does what he has to do, no matter what it is, he works his ass off, he�s a great guy, and you guys need each other. You�d be perfect together�.
I agreed. She convinced me. Laurie is an excellent sales person, I�m telling you she could sell sand to someone in the desert, and why she isn�t in sales is beyond me, but anyway.
Once Hub got my phone number, he called and wanted to come over right away. He couldn�t remember my face at all and wanted to see if he remembered me. I was all, �Whoa, slow down� cuz I play the game, too, no matter how pregnant I was. Never be available right off the bat. Always have plans. So I put him off for a bit. And I actually did have plans that night to have dinner at my grandmother�s.
So, he came over the next afternoon with Hilda for a few. He stayed maybe an hour? And officially asked me out for Saturday evening to Chunky�s (one of those places you can eat restaurant style and watch a movie). This was Monday.
Tuesday, I was busy with something else. I can�t even remember, but hanging out with Hub was not on my list. Hanging out with me was on his list and he had even gone out of his way to get Daisy for the night so I could meet her.
Yeah, he moves fast. I had to slow him down.
Anyway, he came over for a bit Wednesday, and Thursday, too. Thursday was our first kiss. Friday, he invited me to his house (when he still owned it) for Chinese.
It was Friday that I saw how laid back he was. It was so refreshing after being with Dick for almost three years. Hub was chill, he could just hang no matter who was around. And he was such a kid, too. I felt comfortable with him right away, despite his tendency to move way too fast for me, and knew I was going to keep him for a long time.
It wasn�t the whole �I�m so smitten, I like him soooooooooo much, OMG!� type of thing. Yes, the attraction was there, but it wasn�t overwhelming. It was just a knowing kind of thing. I knew, I just knew, even that early on, that I could hang out with him indefinitely.
And if that wasn�t enough, the next night was our date. He brought me a dozen roses in a box, with a little old-fashioned Winnie the Pooh (that I still have) tied on with the ribbon. Kids were off with a sitter, and we were off to Chunky�s. Only, my car�s radiator was leaking and overheating a little. I was just kind of dealing with it, putting water in when it got hot. Or something. I was making enough money to pay the rent and bills, daycare and food, and that was it. Car repairs were not very affordable.
So, Hub noticed the overheating issue and was like, �This needs to be fixed, we can�t drive to Pelham like this�, to which I kind of differed, but not too strongly. So, he opened it up and checked it out and determined that it was some hose that was leaking. Off we went to the auto parts store, where he got the hose. Then, right in the parking lot, he took off his shirt and got right in there and changed the whole thing.
I was impressed. And this is exactly what went through my head: �Roses and now this. He is definitely getting laid tonight�. That was the deal breaker. Otherwise, you know, I was like 8 months pregnant and while I was pretty horny (it had been since like February--it was June--for me. Yeah, February, and Dick & I split up on March 2. I fucked him right until the end. Actually, we were pretty active the last two months for two people who pretty much hated each other most of the time, more active than we�d been in the months prior. What can I say? It was his dick. I�ve said it here before and I�ll say it again. I loved it. Obviously. I made some horrendously bad decisions and I can blame that for them. And that�s just awful), I certainly wasn�t feeling very sexy. But, he�d made it clear (even though I�m sure he was trying to be subtle, Hub is about as subtle as a fifty car pile-up) that he wanted to have sex with me. So, I knew then that �tonight�s the night�.
(Do you think that�s kind of sick? Months later when Dick found out, he couldn�t believe that Hub had sex with me when I was pregnant with someone else�s kid. Of course, Dick had a tough time fucking me when I was pregnant with Minnie. He has issues. Anyway, it wasn�t like I was just out fucking whoever, this was someone I intended to stay with. Alright face it, Hub is one horny motherfucker. Not only did he fuck me while I was pregnant, he fucked Helen and Shauna and that is some sick shit pregnant or not).
Anyway, we went to Chunky�s and saw �Road Trip�. I mean, is that totally me or what? My first date with my husband and we went to see a Tom Green movie. Or, a movie with Tom Green in it. �Freddy Got Fingered� is a Tom Green movie.
After, we went back to my place and did the nasty. It was good, as good as it could be for being as far along as I was. Nothing against his performance.
So, I had a boyfriend. 2000 was a crazy year. Crazy. Between Dick, Mickey being born with the heart defect, Helen and the divorce from hell, and anything else, it was insane. But, we did it together.
He proposed to me in November. It was not romantic by any means. He was working two jobs, one 7-3 and one 10-6 (he had to). Sometimes, he�d come over my house and sleep for a few hours before going to his night job.
This one night, he�d gone to bed and wanted me to come see him when I was done with supper. He had �something to tell� me. I really had no idea it was a big deal at that point.
Well, then Dick showed up and I don�t remember why, but I got caught up talking to him. I didn�t let him in, I was at the door downstairs (I lived on the second floor) with him. He was probably giving me a guilt trip about breaking up with him and wanting to be with his family (that�s been his theme since we split up) and how could I have another boyfriend so soon? Boo hoo waa waa. Try not being a jealous, controlling psycho prick.
Anyway. When that was over, I went to see Hub. He was all disappointed that Dick of all people showed up. Then he started talking about his plan, how he wanted to sell his house and get back on his feet (oh yeah, his divorce fucked him up but good), he was going to get his credit squared away (ie; file for bankruptcy), and he was rambling and just as I started to realize exactly where he was going with it, he pulled out the box and asked me to marry him.
I�d known he was going to. I just knew we�d get married. I just wasn;t expecting it at that time. But, I said yes anyway. And we agreed we had a lot of shit to get past before we could actually get married.
But, that�s how he proposed to me. Nothing too exciting, nothing to write a book about.
Anyway, fast forward a little more than a year, to December of 2001. By then, Hub had sent Butthead and Hilda back to live with Shauna (because of the whole working 7-3 and 10-6 thing) and was living with me. We�d started talking more and more about getting married after he filed for bankruptcy, which he�d done in October of that year.
I don�t even remember what the impetus was. The bankruptcy had been holding us back and at that point it was pretty much done. As his birthday approached we thought, maybe we could get married on his birthday, you know, so he would remember our anniversary. And totally steal away his one special day.
So, we went down to city hall three days before his birthday and applied for a marriage license. We asked for a justice of the peace to do it for us that afternoon. We called our family�s that night and said, �We�re getting married on Thursday!�. Short term weddings don�t get a lot of positive feedback, btw. It�s better to just elope.
Anyway, we got some people to come. My dad, Ned, Jaegan, Lily, Julie and Norman, Butthead and Hilda and, this one is funny, Shauna. Who had brought Butthead and Hilda from up north where they were living at the time.
After my fancy wedding, my dad took Hub, me, Ned, and the kids to The Weathervane for lunch. My �reception�, if you will. Then we went home, back to life as usual.
Although, the sex that night was more incredible than ever. And I know why. For the first time in my life, I was fucking my husband. And he�d just vowed to be with me forever and shit, and it made it different. More intense. I felt a great deal less inhibited. It was awesome.
It was all downhill from there. ;)
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