Every husband and wife probably have stories they can tell from their courtship which helped them determine if that special someone was, well,
that special someone. Someone they wanted to love, honor, cherish, procreate with, and just hang around for the rest of their lives.
This is a story like that. It's really not a big deal, and won't even seem humorous to some. It may be unique, though. (One might even consider it romantic in a twisted sort of way.) I know for certain that it set the bar fairly high for the amount of tolerence and forgiveness my future wife was capable of.
The story's real value for me is the fact that, in spite of its occurrence, I managed to marry this woman at all. My grandkids also might enjoy reading this someday.
Beth and I sang together on a chorus while in college. We traveled around the country during various school breaks and summer vacation. On one particular trip, we had been dating a while, and we were fairly committed, but not engaged.
We snuggled together as the Greyhound bus rolled along on a sunny afternoon.
Beth laid her head on my shoulder, sighed and smiled a smile that obviously meant she needed nothing more in life. Looking up at me in a dreamy sort of way with her big baby blues, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
I in turn leaned my head ever so carefully on top of her head. The sun was shining, my sweetheart was on my shoulder, fellow bus mates were snoring softly, and life was good. My eyes closed and I headed off to dreamland as well.
(All of the above is just a fuzzy memory and may not be very accurate at all. Every detail of what happened next is etched in my brain, permanently and in living color....and probably somewhat predictable by now.)Waking several minutes later, I noticed that the corner of my mouth was moist. This isn't unusual for me, and probably not for most saliva-producing folk who drool a bit when sleeping.
Approximately 2 seconds after waking, I realized exactly what, er who, was beneath me, in direct vertical alignment with the corner of my drool-filled lip.
Panicked, frozen, and starting to feel a bit clammy, I moved my eyeballs downward as far as I could without moving my head, so that I see exactly where gravity had taken my rogue slobber.
It was bad.
Most of the saliva had gathered itself just above Beth's hairline in about a 1/2 inch diameter puddle, but not being able to contain itself, had broken free, creating a small river which proceeded to the area directly between her small, neatly groomed brows.
Thankfully, the very small indentation there had caused the descent of slobber from reaching the tip of her nose. At least for the time being.
At this point, I tried to repair the damage. Thankful again that Beth was still snoozing, but with the feeling of dread in my gut growing larger by the second, I carefully moved my left hand over and with my index finger I attempted to scoop up the drool.
It simply wasn't meant to be. Beth woke with my finger on her forehead. The rest of the dialogue was something like this:
"Is that what I think it is?""Uh, it's really hot in here, isn't it. I'm sweating too.""Right. That's drool isn't it?""Uhm, well, I'm afraid so.""Unbelievable. That is incredibly GROSS!""I'm really sorry.""Disgusting!""I agree. I'm really, REALLY sorry."Well, I really don't remember much of what happened after that.
I do know that she eventually forgave me, but she's never allowed me to fall sleep on her head again.
This morning I attended the awards presentation for Anthony's first-place poem.
