2nd Date with my Wife

I may write about my first date with my wife one day.

I may not.

That first date was truly awful. There were enough things that went wrong that it would probably make an embarrassing story - embarrassing, but probably not funny.

It is not that our second date was so much more memorable than the first. Indeed, the first one was so bad that it is QUITE memorable. But the 2nd date was the one that led to our marriage and is a fun little story to me.

We had a sweet little corner booth at the Outback Steakhouse in Baytown. We had a waiter who was incredibly slow. That worked out because we were not in a hurry. We probably talked for 10 minutes before he even took our drink order. We made the normal kind of chit chat that you would make at the beginning of a meal with ours focusing a little more on work than normal because we both worked at the same warehouse.

It was not so much that I was known at our work as that I was notorious at work. I had a reputation that sinful men relish and that women of WORTH overlook if a sinful man is repentant and oh-so-lucky (read blessed). A mutual acquaintance who knew me for only a couple of years had told my wife that if, "that one comes anywhere near you, run the other way."

My wife told me about that exchange on our second date and I had to admit that it was good advice. If I had been her older brother at the same time, I would have given her the same advice and would have been sullen about her not following it. But she did follow it. I had asked her out the first time roughly a year before we had ever gone out.

She clearly remembers turning me down and I have no memory what so ever of that initial rejection. It was during a time when I had lost weight and almost all inhibition. I was asking EVERYONE out and getting "yes's" from enough to encourage a dude. The failure rate was high but you have to understand that a one in 50 success rate was worth it.

There is joy in sin for a season. And there was. I won't write too much about that time. I heard a woman in church giving her testimony and she did not want to "honor the wrong things" and I have been conscious of that ever since. People detailing how Christ has delivered them can tend to aggrandize their debauchery. Kind of like the folks who lament the fact that they had to walk to school up hill in snow both ways, ya know?

For roughly a year I was actively single. Then I settled down with a woman who was just as sinful as me but so much more scarred by life. After a few months, of course, it fell apart. To make a long story short, at the end of it I was homeless, beaten (literally), humiliated (the beating left bruises that led to incredibly accurate gossip), and just about jobless (the lawyers would not let the executive vice-president fire me - but Lord, he wanted to).

A friend of mine had just stopped drinking and cussing and hanging out all hours of the night and I knew he had been going to church. When he and I talked the morning after my beating while I was looking for a place to live and wondering if I still had a job, I asked him what church he was going to on Sunday.

Turned out he gave me a place to live and his church was in revival that week. For those of you who are not churched (and in some ways it is easier for you unchurched to find Christ than those of us who are buried in ritual so don't feel left out), revival is a week long service each night that is designed(??) to REVIVE a church or a community or a county or a country depending on if the revival catches fire.

I went from the lowest point in my entire life to a week long immersion in Christ's Church with people praying for the bruised and battered young man sitting on the end of the pew six rows back from the alter. My brother likes to say that non-Christian people call that a coincidence. Each and every service that week was about me. I am still flattered that the Lord took up a whole church that week just for little ole me. :)

I told the Lord that I would not taint a woman with a relationship with me until He had made me presentable for a good Christian woman. There were two sermons that week where the protagonist had waited 12 years for the Lord to answer prayer. I thought, "12 years? Really?" And then I thought of how well my life had gone with me as the pilot and made a mental note to take up some sort of hobby to get through the next 12 years while I waited for the Lord to prepare a woman to deal with me.

I knew I was a handful, but 12 freaking years? Wow. Okay. I like baseball. I guess I could collect baseball cards? Twelve years? I guess I could learn to MAKE baseball cards.

After the lawyers had determined that the company had no grounds to fire me, I was allowed to come back to work. The bruises had not healed yet and EVERYONE knew some version of what had happened. I had always been the most arrogant of men and now I had been humbled like never before in my life.

Within hours of being back at work, I had to interact with Priscilla about something. She was perfect in following the unwritten script in my head where we dealt with work and never let on that one side of my face was swollen and discolored. Despite all my work on baseball cards, I noticed that her waist curved in like a perfect moon before resting at her hips. "Dangerous curves, boy," I said to myself. I made myself a promise that I would not chase after a woman so soon after having my Damascus moment. (You unchurched go find a Bible and look up Saul of Tarsus - a great story even if you never believe the blatant truth of the encounter).

The next weekend I asked her out again and got turned down for what I would have told you was the first time but she maintains was the second time. Truth to tell, I don't remember asking her out the first time but I LOVE the fact that she does. Flattering even in rejection all these years later. Man, I love my wife.

I found out what her extension was at work and wrote it on a coaster. Kept that coaster on my desk at work for 4 years and 3 warehouses too. I found out from one of her office folks how you pronounce her maiden name - her last name at the time, obviously. The person I asked was a person I had dated and she had smiled knowingly when I had asked for the proper pronunciation. And I thought I was being all subtle.

The name was not simple after all. It is pronounced "DOOB check" and is spelled Dubcak. Why it is not DUB KACK, I have no idea but I knew I would get no where calling her DUB Kack. Two days later, I asked her out again. And she said yes. And I am not going to tell you about that date. It was sooooo bad that I think she gave me a second date just to see if it could possiblly get any worse.

I have not asked her but our second date could have been a scientific exploration of just how bad dating could be. Turned out we had the kind of date that makes for a horrible TV show or movie or short story but makes for a great conversation over a glass of wine four years later on your anniversary.

We met at the Outback Steakhouse in Baytown, TX. We sat in a corner booth and, like I said earlier, our waiter was terrible. We had tons of time to talk and after exhausting all the small talk topics before our diet cokes got to the table, it was time to start laying out the customary lies of seduction or to be honest.

I told her I wanted to be honest. This was not to suggest which way the conversation would go. I had told numerous women that I wanted to be honest with them. It is one of the best lead in's to a lie. This time, though, I actually told the truth.

I told her I was a drunk who spent most of the previous seven years intoxicated except for working hours and most of those hours hung over. I told her that I was angry for no apparent reason and lashed out at any provocation no matter how small. I told her that I sought out women who were damaged and vulnerable and played on those vulnerabilities. I told her that I had all kinds of potential and ambition but almost no discipline to apply it to anything. I explained that I was really not worthy of going out with anyone. I explained that Christ had saved me and that while I was not exempt from the earthly consequences of these actions, that I was delivered from them.

I realized during all of this that what I was trying to do was warn her. I was trying to talk her out of having a relationship with me. I was trying to tell her that she deserved better and that she should run now.

And this was not a one sided conversation. She matched me fault for fault and sin for sin and damage for damage. She was expending just as much energy trying to convince me that I should stay away from her for my sake.

We talked and talked and talked. The chairs were up on other tables and the staff was sweeping up and we were talking. The check had been paid hours ago and the waiter was still bringing us diet cokes as our glasses emptied. Finally, we broke off and let them close the place. I asked her in the parking lot if it would make her uncomfortable if I kissed her. She said it would not and then we had the most awkward and unpleasant kiss we have ever shared.

We stood in front of each other and I finally said, " I can do better than THAT."

She said, " You better," and we cracked up. I kissed her again while still laughing and she exhaled softly on to my lips as a I pulled away.

I found out later that she always called a friend of hers on the way home from work and that she had not made the call yet this night. When she finally made the call while driving home from the restaurant, the friend blessed her out for having her phone off and not calling. "What the hell were you doing?"

"You'll think I am crazy, but I was having dinner with the man I am going to marry."

She wisely never told me this part of our story until we had been married over a year. So that's it. That's the story of our second date.

A couple of side facts: when I proposed, I got the same booth at the same Outback Steakhouse. I told the manager the plan and the reason and he set everything up. Priscilla told me later that the entire staff (cooks, dishwashers, waiters, waitresses, busboys, and hostesses) were all gathered behind me when I got on one knee to pop the question. And yes, the whole restaurant cheered. Might be the only time my wife has been the focus of EVERYONE's attention and she did not care.

Oh, and the 12 year wait? I wondered about that too and during the meal that night cracked up laughing and could not tell Priscilla about it until we were safely married. Apparently I had already completed my 12 year wait. There is a 12 year age gap between the two of us. Some of you will call that a co-incidence, right?