How We Meeted Each Other

You may be one of the 37 people that already knows this whole story by heart if you care to remember everything I have ever told you in my entire life. But just in case you haven't heard or you have forgotten the glorious nonsense, I'm gonna tell you the story again. Reece and I have yet to get tired of telling and re-telling the comedy to each other about once every two weeks or so. So, perhaps you won't be too bored to tears with the whole narrative.

I had come up here for Tara's wedding and had no hope for the future in the man department, so I was being my usual self and flipping my lid about every one of the male species that crossed my path, so long as they didn't look like an axe murderer. After the wedding was over I came up to Minnesota to visit Katelyn for the last part of my vacation. I was planning on going back to SD on Monday afternoon, so I would have time to adjust my brain and luggage to accommodate the fact that I was gonna be flying out of Watertown, and my bags were usually .5 lbs. off of the 50 lb. weight limit. Please ask me not what the tarnation I hauled around the world with me. I don't pack that heavy anymore and I haul diapers and wipes everywhere I go now!! Of course, on Sunday morning we went to church and then started hightailing it out the door to go have a smoke before we went home, when my life changed forever when from behind me in the hallway this voice merrily yells, "HEY! So what's trouble been up to lately?"

I didn't know who on earth this weird guy with the teeth that needed brushing so badly was screeching at, and he WAS kinda cute in a weird truckerish looking fashion, from the 2 second glace I saw of his face before I did what I did best in those days whenever an unattached male got within 75 feet of me. My face went flame red and I floored it to get out the door so he wasn't so close to me. Then I realized the Katelyn was talking to him and Noah was giggling and this strange character was talking to THEM! Or more particularly, to Katelyn! Oh dear. My hands began sweating as this guy followed us out across the parking lot and Katelyn kept giving me THE LOOK and I foggily started suspecting that I was finally face to face with the very person she had been telling me I would go perfect with, 6 months before! As soon as I realized that information my feet started sweating more than my hands, and I tried to smoke calmly but my cigarette was shaking quite badly by that time, so I gazed at the trees across the parking lot so nobody would be able to accuse me of checking this guy out.

The only problem I was having was the fact that he had planted himself directly in front of me and was talking to Katelyn and Noah a mile a minute while gazing at ME! Finally after about 5 minutes of them saying a bunch of words to each other I KNEW that this was THE GUY. The guy that I had received a call about one Sunday afternoon 6 months ago. The guy who was a truck driver and had shown Katelyn his brand new CDL in church one Sunday morning down in the basement back when the volume switch on his voicebox was broken. The guy who she had said I should get together with. The guy who had said that he wouldn't mind meeting me as long as I didn't look like a cow, like the female who was chasing him at the time did. And the guy, that after I got off the phone with Katelyn that Sunday afternoon, I had promptly called my friend Brenda and had an hour long discussion about, that started with the words, "Katelyn found me a husband!" and ended with us laughing our heads off at the thought of such a thing happening to me.

SO. After I had these 70,000 thoughts run through my head in that five minute period, I thought of a question I had wondered about many times. So I spoke the first words of my life to Reece Tumberg, and I said," HEY! You would know! How many gallons of gas does your truck hold?" Being the weirdo that he is, he smirked at me and made me feel dumb for the question and replied, "NONE." I kinda looked at him dumb founded with my mouth kinda hanging open and then I realized what he was talking about. So I spoke the second sentence of my life to him. "You are SO DUMB!! You KNOW what I mean!" And he laughed and cackled and giggled and roared and fell in love on the spot. -I must add here that his ringtone on his phone for me is Kenny Chesney's You Had Me From Hello and I always argue with him that that is technically incorrect, because I never said "Hello." to him until a few hours later. It should actually say, "You had me from 'Hey, how many gallons of gas does the tank on your truck hold?'" But I guess that's what popped into his head when he saw me so that's my ringer. If you're wondering, mine for him is Livin' On Love.- :D

Anyway, after we got that nonsense cleared up, Noah told Reece he should come over to their house that afternoon. Of course the man jumped all over that idea. Then as he was heading to his pickup, Katelyn yelled at him to bring his truck over to their house. I immediately ferociously shushed her and breathed a sigh of relief when he said, "WHAT?!" So I said "SHUT UP!" to her and she REPEATED IT!! And he still said "HUH?!" so she finally gave up and I breathed freely while I shivered and shook in the back seat of their pickup and alternated between chewing Katelyn out for telling him to bring his truck over and asking Noah 72,849 questions about Reece. All was calm and bright as we got gas and drove home and I breathed a sigh of relief as we started up the driveway and there was no truck in sight. That sigh had barely escaped my lungs when we finished going around the curve in the driveway and there. Right in front of the lilac bushes by the shed, was a big, huge, large, gray flat top Freightliner FLD Classic 12.7 Liter Series 60 Detroit 500 HP with 355 rear ends 13 speed Eaton Fuller Transmission 24.5 LowPros and a cigarette lighter in the dash. -Pardon the Turdy Point Buck Sequel reference, I thot it sounded good.- I died a thousand deaths and vowed never to step foot out of their vehicle again all the days of my life as we pulled into the garage and I saw Reece standing by the truck howling with glee.

When I finally got extracted out of the pickup and convinced to come out of the garage, I whizzed into the house and changed my clothes and put some deodorant on since I was having a problem with my nerves causing my sweat glands to go into overdrive. Then I tried to ignore the fact that there was a male in the house who, to quote Noah "Was interested." I successfully hid in the bedroom and tried to explain to Katelyn what I was thinking, but due to the fact that my brain was short circuiting I couldn't explain a thing. So we went outside to smoke and I figured I'd be safe to go check out this truck while the man was busy inside yakking. What do you know. I had barely approached the large machine when I heard the door open and Reece came flaming over to show off his truck. He was quite proud of it, because he had only had it for 6 months then. There were a couple of Katelyn's aunts there that day and they were all saying they wanted a ride in the truck so that they could get me to get in there and go for a ride with him. See how these people conspire against me?! Sheesh.

I finally climbed in and we went around the block. I think. I don't have the foggiest clue where exactly we went, 'cause I was trying to comprehend the fact that I was getting a ride in a truck that belonged to an eligible male. An eligible male that was looking at me. And one who could read my mind before I had known him for two hours. As we were driving along I heard a PING on the pipes and I looked over at Reece wondering what on earth caused that noise and he answered the question I didn't ask with two words; "Power lines." I wracked my brain the whole time wondering what on earth to say, while the other women sitting on the bed in the back talked nonstop asking him all kinds of questions. When we got back to Katelyn's I have no idea how I got from the truck to the house, I just remember hiding in the bedroom with Katelyn trying to get the gumption to say something bright and witty that would make sure this guy knew that I really wanted to get to know him. But my mind was a complete blank.

The next thing I remember, Noah came in the room and said Reece was leaving. I almost had a heart attack. I heard the truck fire up and looked out the back door to see him taking off down the road. I remember someone screeching at him to stop and come back but he saw and heard nothing. (Typical Golden Ring Driver) He had come to the conclusion that I wasn't interested so he was going home to do something on his farm tractor and meet Josh to look into buying some Snap-On tools - which he still hasn't gotten I might add- As I was gazing out the door I felt the strangest thing happen to me that I had ever felt. I have never had such a sensation before or since. I literally felt my heart go flying out of my chest, jump in that truck and drive away with him. Then I got scared. I kept asking them to call him somehow and see if he would come down to the barn when they did chores that night, but nobody had his cell number. SO we grabbed out the phone book and found his mom & dad's number. There was NO ANSWER. I was more scared than I had ever been in my entire life and I saw my chance slipping away because I was too stupid and shy to know how to act decent enough for a guy to ever like me or anything.

Katelyn finally called back to his parent's house and he answered!! She then asked him if he would like a South Carolina phone number. He, being the cruel individual that he is, played dumb until I was dying of embarrassment thinking everybody had been wrong in thinking that he was interested. FINALLY he took down my number, after much deliberation and him giving his number for me. Well, my stupid cell phone was retarded and wouldn't text or something so I text on Noah's phone to Reece's phone to ask him if he'd come to the barn during chores. The nut didn't reply. But after 10 minutes of them telling me horror stories that he probably didn't know how to text or have his phone on him, Noah's phone rang and it was Reece's number which I had memorized in that extremely short amount of time. So I grabbed the phone and ran into the back bedroom slamming the door shut behind me. Said door almost busted off it's hinges behind me from the force of 4 women leaning their ears against it trying to eavesdrop on my conversation, so I headed out into the yard where I paced and talked on the phone for 16 minutes and 43 seconds. No, I'm not exaggerating the time. That was the exact amount of time we talked that very first phone call. I remember this kind of needless information ya know!

I finally got it out of him that he would come down to the barn for chores and I tried to calm down for the 3 hours before chore time. When we got to the barn he wasn't there yet so I started having another heart attack, but then he arrived. Someone had told Joe what was going on, so I was surrounded by 7 grinning idiots who were watching us like bugs under a microscope. For some reason, watching men milk cows in a barn had a calming effect on me and I started talking to Reece. Somehow we wound up outside and then went to his pickup to get a coat for me. Then we went to Ottertail for a pack of smokes 'cause my nerves had smoked the last one. We were discussing this the other day, and if that could be considered a date then I guess that was our first date. Otherwise, the first time we dressed up and went out to eat at a fancy place was after we were engaged. LOL!

After chores, Reece came back to Noah & Katelyn's and someone brewed a pot of coffee for us and we sat out on the porch until 3 am talking. After a couple hours, when we were discussing wedding plans, Reece said we should just go over to the courthouse and wait until they opened in the morning and elope. And you know? I DID NOT REALIZE until we had been married for 3 years already that the man was DEAD SERIOUS when he said it. I of course, thought that he was just kidding so I laughed it off. Glory. Who ever heard of such a thing? Course, who ever heard of discussing wedding plans before you've known someone for 8 hours? But then again, nobody ever said I was normal and I certainly wouldn't be very happy being married to a normal person, so I'm thinkin' that God put us together to complement each other's weirdness.

He gave me a hat that day and the next morning when I woke up, I realized I had left it in his pickup the night before. So I called him before I even combed my hair and he was at his uncle's house drinking coffee. When he heard the dilemma he said he'd be right over. Now, back then I knew nothing of the geography of MN, and I certainly had no idea where his uncle Arnold lived. But NOW? I still wonder how on the face of this green earth did he make it from all the way over there to N&K's house in the time it took me to comb my hair and start washing my face! He says he took backroads 'cause you can go 65-70 on them and on the tar you can only go 55. He musta liked me or something.

This is getting extremely long, but suffice it to say, I didn't leave MN on Monday. I left at 4 o'clock on Tuesday morning, followed Reece into Fergus to the Big Chief, where he bought me a coffee cup and then headed up to Greenbush to pick up a load of stoves and I headed to SD so I wouldn't miss my flight home at noon. I barely made it, and that was the first time in my entire time of flying up here that my suitcase was an absolute, complete MESS instead of neatly organized when I flew home. I talked to Reece so much for so long that I didn't have time to do anything other than throw stuff in, sit on the lid and shake the bag to get it closed.

This concludes part one of how I went from being as lone as a super single at Tara's wedding, to being married for 2 weeks when she had her 6 month anniversary.