Chicken Soup for the Soul: True Love

BY: Christine Trollinger

There's nothing in this world so sweet as love. And next to love the sweetest thing is hate.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Looking at our wedding pictures always makes me giggle. I recall the young man that my brother brought home to dinner one night well over forty-seven years ago. It was not what one could call love at first sight. It was more like loathing at first sight.

The first time I had met him was a few weeks earlier. It all began with a phone call to my high school principal's office. I was a senior in high school at the time. I worked after school at a local restaurant as part of our school work-credit program.

This particular day, I was not scheduled to work, but Mrs. K (the owner) had called and left a message with the office that I would have to take another waitress's place. Mrs. K was not the nicest person in the world to work for to say the least. She never asked if I was available -- she just said in her message to "be there at 4:00 P.M." Since not showing up would affect my grades for graduation, there was no way I could wiggle out of the unplanned shift.

My mother was quite the taskmaster herself, and I found myself caught in a bit of a pickle. My mother expected me to be home immediately after school to start dinner for our family. I tried to call my mom at her workplace to tell her of the change in plans but was unable to reach her. Unfortunately there was no voice-mail in those days. There was no way my mom would just let it slide if she did not know of the change in my work schedule. I could count on being grounded, no matter how good the excuse was, if I did not get my message through to her.

Mrs. K never allowed employees to use the phone while on duty and I knew she would not budge on her rules, even though she was the one who had created the situation. I had to stop for gas so I decided to call my mother again from the gas station. My dad had an account at the local Shell station, where I could sign for gas, and Ed (the owner) would bill my dad later.

I was surprised to see a total stranger running the gas station instead of Ed. The young man was quite a flirt, and took his time putting the gas in the tank, washing the windshield, checking the oil, etc. I tried my best to get him to just put the gas in the tank and forget the other routine services, but he kept on trying to impress me. I tried to be polite, but flirting with a strange guy was the last thing on my mind. He was seriously threatening my job and my big date for the Sweetheart dance the following day if I got grounded.

I finally told him, "Look sir, I am in a big hurry. I have to get to work. Now please put the gas on my dad's credit line in Ed's book." Naturally this lead to more delays as he insisted he had no idea where such a book would be or how to do it, so I had to go inside and find it behind the counter for him. I was beginning to think he wasn't very bright. It was a red ledger, exactly where I told him he would find it, right beside the cash register.

My next big mistake was in asking him to give me a dime for the payphone, and put that on the ledger charge too. Good grief! He began to lecture me about taking money from a stranger and other nonsense. By that time I was furious and stomped out hurrying to get to work, and decided to try and talk Mrs. K into letting me use the phone at work.

Naturally, with all the time wasted at the filling station, I was late to work and Mrs. K refused my request to use the phone. Not only that, she also said I had to stay late and do clean-up duty to boot. By the time I got home at midnight my mom was fit to be tied and as I had feared, I was grounded. A rude stranger had ruined my life. I hoped I never would lay eyes on him again.

As luck would have it, a few weeks later, my mom called me at school and asked me to pick up an extra pound of hamburger as we were having a guest for dinner. Sounded normal to me, so I was totally unprepared that evening when my brother walked in the door with his new friend named Gene that he had met at the gas station. I wanted to hide in the kitchen as I was still so angry at him, but manners precluded my doing so.

By the time the meal was over, the young man apologized for all the trouble he had caused me and he became a regular visitor in our home. When time for the prom came, my boyfriend and I had broken up, so Gene offered to be my date. From there a loathing at first sight became a love story which resulted in forty-one very happy years of marriage and three beautiful children. Obviously, I decided he wasn't so bad after all.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/11/Loathing-at-First-Sight.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=mail.ru