I don't often find myself in very exciting situations. I have generally played it safe my whole life. I also tended to just settle for what just fell in my lap rather than aim for something better. Jobs, girlfriends, friends, money, these things just came and went as I leisurely made my way through my young adult life. I didn't care that I wasn't part of the cool group, or that I wasn't driving the flashiest car, for that matter that I wasn't driving at all. The only thing I cared for was music, and that is one thing I had particularly good taste in. Though on your resume, under the section 'What are your strengths?', answering 'my particularly good taste in music' never would have gotten me ahead in any job interview.
Sometimes though, having a particularly good taste in anything, can sometimes allow for you to be in just the right place at just the right time, and something may just fall into your lap so extraordinarily amazing, that you have no option but to throw all caution to the wind, and catch it by its tail.
I had just recently come out of an average relationship after an average breakup forced me to move out of our average rental flat in an average part of an average town. I didn't really care that the relationship had fallen through, she had asked me out at a time when I was feeling so lazy that I couldn't even be bothered letting her bad personality put me off, or for that matter the extra 25kgs she carried on each side. The relationship went for two years longer than it should have and ended as meekly as it began. I temporarily moved back in with my parents, my mother actually happy to have me home, more so to have moved on from the girl that had been "keeping me down" as she put it. I never told her that I was already down to begin with and moving back into my parents at 22 years old certainly wasn't helping me back up. Though it certainly did leave me with a lot of extra cash now that I wasn't supporting a lazy bitch who just ate Cheezels all day while playing video games, the indent in the sofa growing more like the shape of her ass with every passing hour. Don't get me wrong, I fucking love Cheezels, but it's the fact it wasn't me eating them that pissed me off.
So I had some extra cash each week, even after quitting the second job I was forced to take in order to just get by and retaining my mediocre minimum wage full time job. I now had plenty money left over to start treating myself to some nice shit. And by nice shit, I meant it's time I bought some of those CDs I promised I would still purchase after several years of illegally downloading music. We've all made that promise, but I for one was going to actually keep to it, the better me, the improved me.
I was at the music store, sorting through an assortment of completely mis-categorised cd's, shaking my head as I went, thinking "Surely they should have a separate melodic technical death metal section for these". I was holding two albums, comparing the tracklistings, weighing up the pros of each album, when suddenly a voice caught my attention. It was a beautiful voice, female obviously, and it sounded like when you're sitting in the sun on a cloudless summer day, it's about 2 in the afternoon and you're on your third Corona and you should be at work but you called in sick... like that sound. There was something odd though, it was the words, when I actually ran them through my brain a couple of times I realised she was talking to me.
I looked up from the CD covers I had been studying, slowly, as not to appear too eager, and my eyes fell upon a girl standing in front of me. Yes, a girl, she was facing me, within arms reach, she had blonde hair that feel down upon her shoulders and she had these great big brown eyes that were looking up into my own. She was literally a head with blonde hair and big brown eyes, that's all I initially noticed, and that she was maybe a foot shorter than me. But those bloody great big brown eyes, I found myself being lost in them, I became a clayman, unable to move, transfixed by the unusual beauty held within. I just stared for what felt like a minute but was probably only a second, actually judging by the frowning shape her eyes were suddenly taking on its likely I've just been staring at her for the last minute. God, maybe longer. I suddenly felt uncomfortable, I needed to communicate, to converse.
"Sorry?" I asked. Or was I apologising.
"I said you should definitely go with Last Fair Deal Gone Down, every song is a classic. Eternity is an amazing album but the production brings it down so I would wait for a remaster," she said. There was that voice again, it made my legs weak at the knees. It was a voice that still made lemonade taste like a summer's day. And along with the voice there appeared on her face, under the great big brown eyes, two big red lips that moved in time to the words I was hearing. They were a gorgeous red, the kind of red lipstick that when worn by the wrong person you think "it looks sexier on television, this just looks trampy". Well, this girl could pull it off. Her bottom lip was big and pouty, the top one not as prominent but with exactly the right amount of definition, both coming together sweetly when paired together with those big frowning eyes... frowning, why is she frowning at me, how long ago did she stop talking?
"I'm sorry, I'm still in shock that you're actually talking to me right now," I blurted out.
She laughed. It was a cute laugh. She has a cute nose between those bloody great big brown eyes and ruby red lips of neverending eternal succulence. With two bold features so dominant, this cute roundish nose broke up the excitement, giving you some time to take it all in, similar to when movies used to have a half-time break, which also gave you an opportunity to get more popcorn. When she laughed her cute nose crinkled up, cutely.
"I'm not entirely sure if you're being creepy on purpose or you're really just... well, creepy?" she asked, a hint of the laugh was still in her voice but appeared to be fading as she got further through her sentence. In all honesty if this exchange was occurring in a subway she would have been running away by now.
"Oh totally putting this on, only a creep would actually admit to really being a creep," I replied.
"Good to know," she said. We stood awkwardly for a moment, the silence was suffocating. "Well, be sure you make the right choice," she gestured to the CDs and turned to leave.
"I will," I said watching her moving away from me, no longer at arms reach.
"Bye." she had completed her turn and started walking towards the door.
"See-ya," I replied after her.
I watched her leaving, this girl that had, in only one exchange, taught me the true meaning of awe. Catch the wind by its tail. CATCH THE WIND BY ITS TAIL.
"Wait," I called after her. She turned to face me. "Are you not even going to ask me to go out for a coffee?"
My story actually starts here, feel free to skip the above few paragraphs, my wife says that the day we met went nothing like that anyway.
My name is Chris. I'm married to an absolutely amazing woman named Alice. She's got shoulder length blonde hair, big brown eyes, and large kissable lips. She has other things going for her, but this is what I noticed first. We'd been together for about nine years before we decided to get married, and about a year after that we had our first child.
Meeting Alice actually saved me from myself. Although I still never did anything terribly exciting, I certainly learned how to live, or at least how to take a little risk. I certainly learnt how to pursue happiness with diligence. Alice was also more of a home-body, and we enjoyed each others company over anybody else's, so we did most things together. We adapted to parenthood easily, never getting the opportunity to live through any of the horror stories you so often hear about, it really was a breeze.
So, about three months ago Alice's older sister, Charlotte, had a marriage breakup. It didn't surprise me, she is a high maintenance woman and he was an 'I'm gonna do whatever I want' man. He ended up leaving all together, we never heard from him again, Charlotte did but only when he needed some money, which he never got. After a couple of months, Charlotte had to swallow the awful truth that she could no longer survive on her own financially, and she had to put their house on the market. It was a large house, and with only one income she was barely able to cover the mortgage, let alone have enough money to live on. Alice, being the nice charitable person she is, offered up our spare room to Charlotte, to live with us until she was better able to support herself again.
This was hard for Charlotte to swallow. Success had always been her thing, she had the job, the money, the car. For her to have to reach out would have been the most difficult thing she would have ever had to do. But she had to just suck it up, with no better options she unwillingly accepted our offer and moved in to our's a week later. We all helped her clear out her house, putting all her things into storage. One thing she didn't put into storage however was her bloody great wardrobe of designer clothes. She had so many clothes, and with no actual closet in her room the overflow ended up in Alice's walk in wardrobe attached to our bedroom.
