how #54 became my husband, part the first

You may be wondering (especially if you're here from Kelly's Korner) how Christopher and I went from this:

to this:

and ended up like this:

It's a long story that will be made even longer due to my inability to tell a short story. (So 2,678 words into this, don't say I didn't warn you.)

Sometime at the beginning of last July, Autumn and I had one of our many conversations about the lack of acceptable young men in world. Not that they weren't there, we just felt they must not be in our neck of the United States (or possibly all of the western hemisphere). We discussed creating a website dedicated to any and all young men we thought would be acceptable for our single lady friends. A list of sorts. Because we like to take other peoples relationships into our own hands. You can imagine the great delight it brought to my heart when a list of no less than 174 single people was started on Kelly's blog. I immediately contacted Autumn because it was EXACTLY what we had been talking about. We spent a good part of the next two days messaging back and forth about how #73 would be good for so and so and DID YOU SEE NUMBER 12?! We were all levels of excited. We thought all we were doing was finding somebody for other people and that was all, but it turns out a whole lot more was about to happen.

About a week later, I was going through a most unfortunate phase at bedtime called Lie in Bed For Hours Without Sleeping. It was during this time that I received an email from an unknown person named Stephanie. I almost deleted the email because I assumed it was probably just another sob story from a poor person in Indonesia looking for a job and $150,000. Then I realized the subject line said "Kellys Korner SUYL" and I got very intrigued. I opened it to find that it was from a lady named Stephanie who had put her brother Christopher up on The List. He was number 54 to be precise. Apparently I had commented on what she wrote, and here she was telling me that her brother might possibly email me. She told me he had degrees in history, religion, and had gradated from culinary school. I believe the proper word to describe how I felt at the moment was SHOCKED. I had absolutely no recollection of what I may have said and because the post had been taken down (Stephanie put it up without asking which is something Autumn and I totally approve of), I couldn't go back and find it. I was on all sorts of pins and needles the next day. Our plan had been to find that special someone for other people, and OH MY GOODNESS what did I say?? Of course I immediately contacted Autumn and you know what she did? Screamed and giggled. That was her response to finding out that some strange man from the internet might email her best friend. 

We did not have to wait long to find out if the might possibly email would appear because during the next night of Lie Without Sleeping, when I was in the middle of watching Emma, I received an email from someone named Christoper who was writing from the other side of the world. It was a very long email. It revealed that he was deployed to Iraq, that his sister had put him on The List in a "spontaneous solution for boredom", and that he had spent "the last hour and a half reading a pink webpage covered with flowers, buttons, and an unusual amount of wedding pictures."

I assure you that had I not been lying down, I would have fallen over. (If you think I went to sleep after that, you are WRONG. There was no sleep in my future.)

The next day (after an emergency meeting with the screaming, giggling one), I wrote back some sort of small, not-very-creative email followed up by a longer one in which I said I was going to a Civil War ball and that I'm penpals with George and Barbara Bush. (I don't know what made me say that part. Was I trying to be an impressive name-dropper?) I also said, "I'm known to use lots of !!!" How true that is. 

And so began my correspondence with Christopher.   

Part the second coming soon to a computer near you.

click here for part two!