SAILING CAMELOT

Quite often people enquire about how we came together, so this is for you.

Tom and I met in a pretty unusual way and the first stages of our romance were somewhat hilarious.

Let’s go back to the first few days of August 2003.

I was then a divorced young(ish) woman with a passion for motorcycles, and spent many of my weekends teaching Motorcycle Safety classes.

On this particular Saturday morning -August 2nd- I was in a rotten mood, after yet another disappointing date the night before that prompted me to finally just swear off men and their antics. I wisely decided that I didn’t need a man in my life after all. My life was pretty happy as it was. I had a job I liked, my weekend classes, my motorcycle trips, a lot of good friends. I enjoyed my own company, was self sufficient and proudly independent.  I was done with the Pointless Hunt for the Perfect Mate.

So that’s what was on my mind as I was on the range early that morning, meeting and greeting my students. Zero tolerance for bullshit and a devil-may-care attitude. The course began.

Over the next several hours I noticed (how could I not!) this big, tall, golden-haired guy that was exceptionally whiny. “Instructor!” he would belt out every so often, raising his hand, and on with questions, problems, complaints. It soon became pretty obvious that it was just a way to get a bigger share of my attention. I brushed it off. The lady instructors were quite used to male students hitting on them, it was a regular occurrence.

 During one of our breaks, Tom asked me out. I wasn’t surprised and gave him our standard reply.

“We’re not allowed to go out with our students, so why don’t you focus on completing the course, pass the test, get your license and then maybe we can talk about it”.

From that moment on Tom was a model student, diligent, skilled, no more whining or calling. Of course the next day he breezily passed the test and earned his license.

As we were handing out paperwork and congratulations to the students, Tom finally took his sunglasses off… And I literally gasped. Just a split second, I caught myself immediately. Yeah, sure, pretty eyes, so what… Still…

Well, the course was over, he passed his test. He walked to me with his business card in hand and very simply said “Thank you, it was a great class. Here, keep this, maybe give me a call if you’d like to go out sometime”.  Simple, direct, no fuss, no pressure. I liked that, and was almost considering giving him a call in the near future. He seemed like a fun, nice guy. With killer eyes… Then we said goodbye, he walked to his car and I started getting ready for my long ride home.

Then his cell phone rang. “Hi, sweetie” he replied to the caller “I’m running just a bit late, I should be home shortly”.

I was stunned. “That’s it!”, I thought fuming. Another one of them cheating, charming snakes with a wife at home, hitting on any available, breathing  female.  

Oh, I was furious. I slapped my helmet shut and rode my bike well above the speed limit all the way home.

I was so royally pissed! I told myself to just ignore the whole thing, throw away his card. After all he had no idea who I was and where I lived, it could have ended there and then, no harm no foul… But for some reason I felt still enraged and insulted well into the next day. And angry at myself, too. “You idiot, a pair of blue eyes and you become Miss Gullible all over again!”.  Me and my non-existent people-reading skills… I could slap myself!

I called his number, determined to give him a piece of my mind, if for no other reason than prove to myself I was not going to take any shit from yet another frisky guy.

He was so happy to hear from me, which for some reason made me even madder. So I launched into a brief but intense monologue laced with various creative insults, pitying his “sweetie” that had to put up with him and his cheating ways, finally ending with “how dare you mislead me like that, who did you think you were fooling with”, or something like that.

There was a brief, stunned silence and I thought with satisfaction “Ha! Take that, mister!”.

Then his voice, very amused and with a hint of laughter “Uh, well, the “sweetie” you heard me talk to is actually my neighbor Linda who was watching my daughter. See, I’m a single Dad and I have a 16 yr old daughter at home.”

Oops. I couldn’t think, much less talk, I was so busy trying to swallow both my feet… “Hello, Lori, you still there? Listen, I’m at work so why don’t I call you later when I’m off”. “Sure”, I said, and hung up. He must have thought I was the psycho from hell…

I spent the next 6 hours trying to formulate a sincere apology, feeling like a total moron.  I don’t think I have ever been more embarrassed in my whole life.

When Tom called later that night, he was so thrilled I made contact that his only reference to the earlier verbal abuse was a jolly good laugh and a “You owe me dinner now! How about tomorrow night?”.

I accepted, and we kept on yakking on the phone for the next 5 hours.

To end this long story, I ended up marrying him about four months later. How we got married is another funny story… Maybe another time.

It’s been eight years. We’re still playing pranks on each other and having a lot of fun enjoying each other’s company. I hope we never stop.