The Story Part Two

And you thought I was never going to finish . . .

At this point in the story there are two things you should know: 1) At this time (and currently come to think of it) the Wright family lived approximately 1 ½ blocks away from the Quesenberry family (about 300 paces to be exact) and 2) One of the many positives of being part of the Mormonified Church is that they have this super sweet communication system called the Relief Society. I mean, you want information about someone in the neighborhood, just to talk to a member of this organization and guaranteed they’ll know the answer.

Anyway, it just so happens that my mother is, luckily enough, a member of this Mormon intelligence organization. So, after seeing young Ms. Quesenberry in my singles ward, I soon thereafter questioned my mother concerning the current marital status of the aforementioned lady. Well, as you can imagine, I was super excited when my mom told me that Lauren was in fact single and that I could return her to her rightful spot on my prospect list.

One problem still remained however. That’s right, you guessed it, I was still the biggest wimp in the whole world. Five years later I still couldn’t seem to muster the courage to actually ask the young lady on a date. A couple weeks passed and pretty soon I had settled back in my comfort zone of singlehoodedness and talked myself out of ever getting up the courage to actually ask L-Money out on a date.

But, before you give up on me, let’s return to the challenge by my church leader to date more often. I had talked myself out of asking Lauren (surprise, surprise), but I still felt this nagging sensation (I believe they call it “the Spirit”) telling me that I needed to date more. Well, I sent the following petition to the man upstairs:

Dear Sir,

If you would like me to go on a date (which is apparently the case according to your employees) I wouldn’t mind if you showed me someone that I could ask on a date that wouldn’t shoot me down (which, as you know, is easier said than done).

Respectfully,
Your humble and occasionally obedient Servant

P.S. I’ll even fast about it if You want. And you know I hate fasting.

Well, I must confess that now and again my petitions do get answered so as I drove to and from work at the Payson each day, I anxiously awaited a response. As I was driving back and forth I passed, every day, the Quesenberry home. Each time I passed I felt that familiar nagging sensation. Well, as I’m prone to do with such promptings, I put it off about three days (maybe four or five though, I can’t really remember) then finally gave in. I called up my friend B. Drew Tyckson (because he has way more social skills then I do) and told him that I would like to have a little shindig at his house and we should invite this new girl in the ward to it. I told him that I wanted her to come, but I didn’t really know her so he should use his connections to get her to come. Well, Drew is pretty incredible and within minutes he had it all arranged. The shindig date was set, the girl was going to come, and I was finally going to meet Lauren E. Quesenberry.

Just one problem, I was still the biggest wimp ever put on this green earth. But don’t you worry, I didn’t back out completely, I did in fact go to the party. As I arrived at Drew’s house I was already to show my amazing charisma and sparkling personality. I walked into the house and found the room where they were gathered together. I walked into the room, saw Lauren (there were probably four or five other people in the room), and promptly walked out of the room. The rest of the night I spent by myself playing pool in a different room by myself. I just could not bring myself to talk to her. At the end of the night we all gathered together to play some old-school Nintendo so I did join them at the end, but do you think I talked to her? Of course not.

Can you say “biggest chicken in the whole world”?

So the day ended, I went home alone and life went on. I had to admit defeat. I realized that there was no way that I was ever going to talk to this girl. No way. No how.

The weeks went by and I again found myself at the Tyckson’s (and I might just mention here that I had actually fasted that day about finding somebody, so my hopes were pretty high). We were at this party-thingy and I was talking to my mentor Orrin S. Rothermel. As we were talking these three girls got out of their car (they were probably about 100 yards away so, since I’m basically blind, I couldn’t tell who they were) and Orrin, being his clever self said, “Hey Andrew, your future wife just showed up.” I laughed at his comment because we both knew that neither of us was never going to get married and then we continued talking about the intricacies of living the single life.

However, as the girls got closer I soon noticed that one of the girls was in fact Lauren (the other two girls ended up being these two crazy sisters called Elyse and Kyria). Anyway, as they got closer I noticed two things. One was that Lauren was really pretty (every time I saw her I would literally lose my breath and train of thought), but the other thing I noticed was that she looked like she would probably shoot me if I tried to talk to her (it was the “I’m way of your league so don’t even think about talking to me” look . So I didn’t. She walked within three feet of me, but did I acknowledge her presence? I’ll give you one guess. The night progressed as any usual part night. I kept my eye on her, hoping she’d pass by again, but eventually she left and naturally I left soon thereafter (at least mentally, if not physically). I had missed my opportunity again.

But hope was not lost.

The next night (which was a Sunday) I went to our weekly singles ward game night. I was a regular at said events (mostly because it was the only social interaction I could find each week) and expected a night of enjoyableness but nothing more. I was going to go there, watch some of my fellow ward members make fools of themselves trying to impress those of the opposite gender, consider potential candidates for myself, and then leave in the exact same fashion as I came: single. I mean, when you’re 29 and counting, you’re pretty much a professional attending these types of events.

Anyway, I went there and reluctantly consented to participating in this one game. I can’t remember what it was, but I really didn’t like it (I actually don’t like games since they often involve social interaction) so at an appropriate time, being sure not to hurt any feelings, I snuck out and walked over to the refreshment table (I was at that time addicted to the bowl of Starbursts). On my way over I noticed this really pretty girl sitting with a bunch of other girls (you know how they like to congregate) and I kid you not when I say I almost passed out right there and then when I noticed who it was. Yep, you’re right, as I walked by there sat the one and only Ms. Lauren. One problem though, she was talking to some other guy (just my luck).

Well, I found a seat nearby her (although not too close because I didn’t want to give myself away just yet) and then started to consider my plan of action. I had said “hi Lauren” as I sat down, but that didn’t get me anywhere (like I said, she was talking to this other bloke so I didn’t want to interrupt too much). There were two problems I had to overcome: 1) she was talking to the other fellow, 2) I have no social skills. Soon enough the first problem was resolved because my competition left (although, honestly, is there anyone who can compete with this). However, I still hadn’t thought of how to overcome the second. I mean really the only thing that I knew about her was that she was divorced with one child. And you know, I might not have very many social skills, but I was smart enough to know that, “So I heard you just got divorced” or “So, are people with children allowed at singles ward events” probably weren’t the most effective ways to start a conversation.

But as I thought and strategized, I was suddenly struck with inspiration. All of a sudden I noticed that she had on her person a device of cellularness. Not only that, but said device looked pretty fancy and I was pretty sure that it probably had Internet access. So, I decided that I would ask her about the score of the Celtics vs. Lakers game. You see, I had found a loophole. It’s true I have no social skills, however, when I’m talking about sports, I can kind of cover my weaknesses. When I received this inspiration, I knew that it was now or never.

So, after five long years, I finally took the bold step. I asked her if her phone could access the Internet (what a line for posterity right). From there on it was pretty smooth sailing the rest of the night (seriously, what was I so scared of all those years). To be honest, I can’t actually remember too much of what we talked about from then on, but somewhere along the line we decided that we’d much rather play a board game at her house than sit at some other persons house as our ward played “sharks and minnows” (a respectable game I’m sure). Thusly decided, we went over to her house and spent the rest of the night playing “Ticket to Ride” and deciding that we probably didn’t hate each other too much and we should probably be friends (at least on Facebook if nothing else).

And what is there to say from then on, but that the rest is history. The next night I asked her if she would like to go get some ice cream together and we’ve spent about every night together since then (except a one month stretch where I went to Europe, but we compensated by writing to each other every night, so it was kind of the same). I dated her from June to September, convinced her that my personality made up for my baldness, and we decided to get married on November 19. She is amazing. I’m still amazed that she would ever consent to spend even a day with me, much less a lifetime.