Flaunt It Friday: How I Met Your Father

The Mommy Kelly's Flaunt it Friday challenge this week is to give insight into perhaps the most significant relationship in my life: a peek at me and my significant other. This challenge is to be less about the pictures, and more about the story.

It was January 1994. I was in my sophomore year at college and had a job selling Cutco Knives via in home presentations since the summer. I was doing a pretty good job selling knives, in fact I had just won a scholarship from the company for being in the top 25 in the nation for sales while attending school full time. This had earned me some prestige and a position as assistant manager in my office.

One night I had just finished a sales demo, and decided to stop the office on my way home. When I got there my manager, Steven was just finishing up an interview. We called them interviews, but really it was a huge group of people who just sat through an hour presentation about being a Cutco sales rep and anyone who wanted the job would be hired.

Steven was happy to see me. His “interview” had been pretty large and he wanted me to keep the group occupied while he pulled each of them out of the room to offer them a position. My job was to keep anyone from leaving before Steven got a chance to talk to them. Steven pointed out one boy in particular, he told me to make sure the boy didn’t leave.

The boy was Jeff. I can call him a boy, because he was 18 years old at the time. I focused all my attention on Jeff for at least 90 minutes while Steven sorted through the other job candidates. It was a strategy of Steven’s to “leave the best for last.” So, Jeff was left for last and of course got hired. Now he was scheduled for a 3 day group training seminar for that weekend. Steven asked me to stop in on the training whenever I wasn’t on sales demos.

Usually when I am telling this story, Jeff is around to interject. He isn’t here now, so I get to tell this next part my way.

Jeff followed me around like a puppy dog. If the training group went out to lunch, he would make sure he was in my car. The group went bowling one night and Jeff insisted it was easiest for him to come to my apartment first. When the next semester of classes started, Jeff managed to add himself into two classes that I was already enrolled in.

I didn’t mind Jeff ALWAYS being around, but I wasn't particularly interested either. Truth be told, I had a crush on someone else.

One night my parents called to tell me that they bought a new TV, and I could have their old one. I was ecstatic. I was a poor college student who had been living without a TV for months. I needed help picking up this TV and moving it into my upstairs apartment so I contacted Jeff and the other boy I had a crush on. Jeff said yes, the other boy said no. Jeff and I spent an hour in the car together driving to and from my parent’s house. It was then that I started to realize how much fun I had with Jeff, and what a jerk this other boy was.

The rest they say is history. We dated for 2 1/2 years before we got engaged. In March of 1997 we were married. And we lived happily ever after. The End.