#How I Met My Wife

After a while you start to smile now you feel cool.

Then you decide to take a walk by the old school.
Nothing is changed it's still the same,
I've got nothing to say, but it's okay.

People running round it's five o'clock,
Everywhere in town is getting dark.
Everyone you see is full of life,
It's time for tea and "Meet the Wife."

Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I'm here;
Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you're in gear.
Go to a show, you hope she goes.
I've got nothing to say, but it's okay.

 

~Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

This is sort of a Part 2 to a previous post from the beginning of March where it was suggested that I needed to use a more radical approach to my finding someone to marry. I must admit that I have not adjusted my strategy much, even in light of that post. The green grass grows where the green grass grows. Perhaps this is due to an acquiescent acceptance that the filtration is incongruent with the matching criterion. That's nut job speak for the fact that we somehow think you find a girl to marry via a ritual of bowling and miniature golf. Maybe we don't actually think that, we just preach it.

Nevertheless, I am going to provide a few suggestions as to methodologies for finding the green elephant. That's nut job speak for providing suggestions as to how to find someone to marry. Many of you already have crossed that threshold, perhaps even by using one of these methods. If you found your spouse via an unusual method, consider sharing it in the comments below.

1. Opportunity Knocks (You Down). I knew of a man who met his wife by hitting her with a door and breaking her nose. This was total dedication on the part of the lady. She committed to take the charge and stood in without shuffling her feet. That's how you play both ends sometimes. #LockedIn. #NoSacrificeTooLarge.
2. Dear John. This is one of those classic stories that you hear as a mission legend. Boy gets a Dear John letter from his lover, companion starts to write to the former lover, they hit it off and end up getting married. This never happened to me from either end. But supposedly it happened to a pair of companions about five years before I arrived. Maybe this is why I had a companion that tried to hide the fact that he had a girlfriend that wrote him a letter every week, including photos. The letters would come in these cute little red envelopes. Maybe they were actually silent howlers. But wouldn't that defeat the purpose? Perhaps she was angry he didn't call her on Mother's Day. #TheyWereNotHowlers. #IKnowYouHaveALoverBuddy. #JustAdmitIt. #ISawThePhotos.
3. Dryer Lint. I think that this is one of those occurrences that could only happen at my current locale. There was a boy who cleaned all the lint screens at the local laundromat each time he did his laundry. It was probably just a manifestation of this boy's obsessive compulsive behaviors. But a girl who did her laundry each week at the same time as this boy saw it as a manifestation of his "focus on service." So they got married. Rumor has it that the girl used a pick-up line to the tune of "I'm stuck on you like a piece of lint. Your static is too attractive to resist. Will you marry me?" #WeirdlyAttractive. #Clingy. #NeverHangYouOutToDry.
4. Lucky Charms. The story goes as follows: You meet the future spouse at a Harry Potter dueling club. She's a Slytherin, you're a Gryffindor. But the moment you see her green eyes and amber hair you know she's the one for you. Together you will conquer trolls in the toilet, drink butterbeer, and probably get a bat boggey curse or two thrown your way. Just make sure that the punch at your reception isn't spiked with polyjuice potion. All it would take is one errant hair from the beard of that weirdo uncle of hers and your sister pulls a Hagrid. #TenPointsToGryffindor. 
5. Yodel-eh-hee-hoo. If you want to avoid the entire sister-becomes-bearded-giant fiasco, consider finding your spouse in a more benign setting. Take yodeling for example. The word "yodel" comes from the Austro-Bavarian word jodeln, meaning "to utter the syllable jo." Can't get more benign than that. Yodelers rarely have issues with spiked-punch-induced androgyny. Most civilized communities have a local chapter of the Yodeling Enthusiasts in Leather Lederhosen (YELL for short). The dues are very reasonable, especially considering the fine-looking frauleins that frequently flock to yodel with YELL. No price is too large for opportunities like that. And it's not everyday that you can appear in public in lederhosen. Or a leopard print onesie. #HighOnTheHillWasALoneyGoatherd. #Yodel-eh-hee-hoo.
   
    
6. Criminal Intent. I personally have never heard of someone meeting their spouse while committing a crime, but I am aware of a guy who took a girl I know on a date to commit some petty thievery. They had to climb a few chain link fences, but who's counting? And one thing I later learned was that if you bring a piece of tough canvas you can cover the barbed wire without a problem. #LifeHack. #ThugHack. #ThugHag. #HagLife. #VVJailCellBlockC. #TechnicalFoul-890. #WingBacker.
7.  Running Down A Dream. This one is derived from personal experience. Almost 10 years ago now I was out running. I did this as a form of exercise. Near my living quarters there was a long hill. I ran up the hill. Then I started to run down the hill. As I was running down the hill I saw two people--females--also running down the hill. They did this as a form of exercise. I think. In some circles their movements would have been called "going slower than I can walk." They were doing one of those herky-jerky jogging motions that actually turns out to be slower than normal walking. So, feeling pretty good about my ability to run faster than I walk, I shot past them. After I was about 40 feet in front of them, I was feeling pretty high on passing the two jerking joggers and I tried to jump over a cement column (~one foot tall) where a street light had once been mounted. But, since it was dark, I missed the fact that the column had long bolts sticking out of the top. One of them caught my foot and I performed a nice head-first slide on the pavement. (This was probably a manifestation of last week's topic of karma). The girls caught me and asked me if I was okay. If I had been wise, I would have tried to work this to my advantage and gotten two new investigators. Instead, I shook off the fall and just ran away, road rash and all. This turned out to be a bad decision on multiple levels, since I next encountered a throng of people crossing the street to a baseball game. They kindly pointed out that I was "Bleeding a lot." But, if this ever happens again, I now know what to do. (As a side note, please understand that I don't usually judge people on how they run. Furthermore, I have seen lots of men who also have bad running technique. To the credit of these two girls, they at least got themselves out there, which is more than can be said for a lot of men.)  #TwoNewInvestigators. #"Jogging"
8.  Above the Ceiling and Below the Floor. This story comes from my friend's parents. They told this to us while we were eating rice and sausage at their house. This is an honest to goodness true story (I have added some details to make it flow though). I guess that about 30 years ago they knew a man and a woman who were both reaching age 31 and who also happened to live in apartments on top of one another. This was before mid-singles became a special interest group, so these two almost-31-year-olds knew they had to do something quickly. Because otherwise, how would they ever find a spouse if they didn't go to a single's ward? Thus, just nine days before he turned 31, and just three days before she turned 31, they met in his apartment and decided to get married. Mind you, they had never previously dated. The only face to face encounters they had was when they met at the mail boxes. But she had heard him singing Phantom of the Opera through her floor (his ceiling) and that was enough for her. A month later they got married. #ThereIsStillHope. #ButICannotSing. #AndIGetNoMail.
9.  Zoo Keeper. If you have ever been to a zoo (a real one, not the local preschool), you may have seen the elephants (Alas, they are not usually green). There once was a man who went to see the elephants. His friends all told him that if he just looked hard enough, he would see the elephants. They had all seen elephants before and were rather pleased with themselves. But in this man's excitement to maybe actually find an elephant, his fervent exuberance overtook him and his great aunt Agnes pushed him into the elephant habitat as he leaned over the railing. Luckily he was rescued by the elephant tamer, who also happened to be single and looking for a man among the elephants. #MyLifeAmongThePachyderms. #TheTermPachydermIsNowAnObsoleteTaxonomicOrderOfMammals.
10.  Your Honor. Have you ever had to serve jury duty? You will be subject to the process of voir dire and will probably just be sent home when all the games have been played. But they pay you $8.10 an hour and give you a tuna sandwich with chips if your servitude extends over supper. As bothersome as jury duty can actually be, if you are looking for a spouse, jury duty can be twisted to your advantage. Picture this. They lead all the potential jurors into the room and you see the cute little red-head of the group.

    

    I have no idea who this girl is.

    You manage to squirm into the seat next to her, even though it means knocking over that older lady with lumbago. (She wasn't going to make a good juror anyway.) The bailiff asks you your name, and you say "Charlie Brown." Red-head says "Heather Schulz." Next they inquire as to marital status. You: very single. Her: single. Then they ask "Occupation?" You say "Specialist." She says "Biofuels Chemist." (Score one for the home team!). You begin to realize that tuna and chips doesn't sound half bad now. Maybe you will get selected for a month long trial. That means sequestration. That means 16 hours a day with Miss Red Head. This could be good. This could be really good. Yes, these are the potentials of serving jury duty. #ResultsMayVary. #Specialist. #TunaSandwich. #WithChips.