As we looked into each other's eyes, over the most delectable egg rolls, we reminisced.
The Day We Met:
April 27, 2003
Chad Diehl, co-worker of mine, invited me to a charity triva event in Naperville. Since, at the time, I worked with my now mother-in-law, Chad advised that "Rose's son will be joining us". Doug and Chad had once worked together at teh DuPage County Airport. Fine by me-let's go play some trivia. We met at Chad's place in Villa Park where I first met Doug in the dining room of Joannie Mahaney's house (main level of Chad & Steph's place). Joannie Bologna as she was affectionately called. My thoughts at the time - that boy needs to trim up the back hair! He had little tufts sneaking out of the neck of his signature white t-shirt. But, he was funny and nice and so the day went on. It is important to note that this was not intended as a set up by Chad, he is just REALLY competitive and wanted the best team possible for trivia. We all know how much useless info is stored in my husbands brain!
We all loaded up and headed to Naperville. Trivia commenced and we rocked...until we got to the Bible category. Back in the day, I would have schooled everyone on this category. Unfortunately, we were not so strong, even as a team of four and with Doug's arsenal of little known facts.
As we enjoyed a few pitchers of beer and appetizers, team photos were taken of all teams. Side note - The following year, we played in the same live trivia event with the team name "First Date" and got a giggle out of the photo from the day we met.
After trivia, the crowd went to Mongolian BBQ in downtown Naperville. Oh so good. Doug and I sat near each other and chatted it up. He tells me he wasn't sure what it was, but he knew I was different. Even though he knew little about me, he was interested. We shared some harmless getting-to-know-you stories. One story I shared was my desire to change my name to Maddy (Mattie?) in 5th grade. Mom and I had watched an old movie and the character's name was Martha but she went by Maddy. I LIKED it!! So, in 5th grade, I became Maddy Matteo. Yep, you heard it right!! What was I thinking?
After dinner we were walking back to Chad's car when we ran into Doug's sister Gwen, Steve and Morgan (Gwen was pregnant with Grace at the time). How funny that we would later all become family. Doug introduced me as Maddy (being cute) and I quickly corrected him and said my name was Marti. So, Gwen thought Doug had made a major faux pas and had blown his chances!
After getting back to Chad & Steph's, the four of us sat around and played cards. Doug had no CLUE how to shuffle. So, I proceeded to help this man who did not know a basic card shuffle. Even tried to teach him a bridge, but I think that was a bit too advanced for his first lesson.
A few days later, while I was at work, I received a voicemail from Doug (remember, Rose and I worked together, so he had the number). It was a cute message that went something like this "This is Chad's friend Doug - had a great time meeting you and playing trivia - wanted to see if you'd be interested in going out sometime - thanks - click"
WHAT!!! No phone number??? So, I laughed and ran back to the warehouse to grab Chad and tell him that his goofy friend left me a voicemail, but no phone number. Chad, being a bit more traditional than I expected, said "I will not give him your cell phone unless you want me to". I thought about it awhile....kidding! "Of course you can give him my cell phone number".
We had our first official date about a week or so later and we enjoyed sailing on Lake Michigan and dinner at Schuba's downtown followed by an indoctrination into Doug's circle of friends as there was a party happening that night.
The rest is history.
1 comment:
Doug, it's ok I can't shuffle cards either. It has nothing to do with how well you play!
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