Imet my husband at the dog pound. I was working there in dog licensing, and he came in to do an audit. Since I was eighteen years old, and he was twenty six, professional and handsome, I really didn’t think he’d be interested.
But consider my competition—they were all dogs!
Finally, Dan asked me to lunch one day. My excitement may have dimmed a bit when we ended up at Burger King (don’t think I’ve let him forget that), but I didn’t eat much anyway (and don’t think he’s let me forget that). All these years later, I don’t remember what we talked about, except that he asked me out on another date.
Eventually those dates turned into two decades of marriage. On our twentieth anniversary, we were sitting around the dinner table with our three sons. We had finished dinner and were just chatting. My husband asked me to get out the Halloween candy.
“Stay out of the kids’ candy,” I told him.
The boys laughed, and said, “Dad can have some candy.”
I sighed. This is the last of the Halloween candy dumped all into one bowl. I got up, pulled the bowl of candy out of the cupboard and handed it to my husband.
Dan handed the bowl back to me. “Pick what you want first.”
Okay, so yeah, I might have a little problem with chocolate. I had been avoiding looking in the candy bowl to resist temptation. Dan and the boys know this, and of course, they are Chocolate Enablers. I gave in, looked in the bowl and blinked in surprise. A small square wrapped box sat on top of the candy. Suspicious, I looked up at Dan. “We said no gifts! We went to dinner and the comedy club to celebrate our anniversary! No gifts!”
By this time, the boys are squirming all over. “Open it Mom!”
I pulled out the box and opened it. My husband got me a beautiful anniversary ring inlaid with diamonds. I was shocked, overwhelmed and I loved the ring. I put it on and it fit perfectly.
When we married, we were buying a house at the same time and so we skipped the diamond engagement ring to get matching gold bands. I tried to tell Dan how much I loved him and the ring.
“I wanted you to have a diamond ring,” Dan said simply.
The boys were so excited. They had been in on this all along. They knew their dad was buying me the diamond ring that we hadn’t been able get when we got married. We sat there at the table that evening and told the kids the story of the dog pound and our first date at Burger King. They’d heard it before, but it still cracked them up. As for me…
I may have met my husband at the dog pound, but I got a real gem of a man.
Jennifer Apodaca is the author of The Sex on the Beach Book Club and the Samanta Shaw mystery series. You can find her at www.jenniferapodaca.com.
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