Tuesday, November 4, 2008

How I Met Your Mother

First off, I forgot to mention yesterday that this Friday's picture theme will be Halloween costumes. GO!


On with the show. Ok, yesterday Middle Aged Woman left me a comment which read:

I'll make you a deal. You e-mail me a question for tomorrow's post, and I'll e-mail you one. Topic covered, we just have to BS our way through the answer!

Sounds good to me. Email later in the day:

How did you and Supreme Leader meet? If you have already answered this on your blog, feel free to make up something completely fictional.

While fiction would be entertaining, the real life story is pretty interesting without embellishment. If you're interested, make yourself comfortable, this might take awhile.

We need to go back in time to 1965. Or 1966. Doesn't really matter, there won't be a quiz. The city is Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, a small country in South East Asia. Supreme Leader's mother, who is from northern Thailand, has moved here to work in a family member's lumber yard. Supreme Leader's father, wisely not wanting to be drafted into the South Vietnamese Army, also moves to Laos and finds work in the same lumber yard.

Sigh. Fast forward 42 years and Princess PITA (pain in the ass) saunters in from the living room and starts reading over my shoulder.

Pita: She worked as a servant in the house.
Me: Whatever.
Pita: It was my uncle's lumber yard. My father's brother.
Me: I don't remember the story that way.

Banter I was a part of but not entirely paying attention to...

Me: How about you don't read my stories until they're done.
Pita: (some smart ass comment I can't quite remember now)
Me: You don't even know what you're talking about. You're making this shit up.
Pita: I'm embellishing like my husband.

Ok, so her parents meet in Vientiane at some point during the Vietnam War at some relatives house or place of business. Romance and marriage ensue. Two brothers, Supreme Pita and then three more sisters arrive. And then Laos falls to the communists. Oops. The family flees the country and ends up in a refugee camp in Thailand. (That part is a story in itself) After a few years the family is sponsored into Canada by a church group. The family is flown from Thailand to Montreal. In December. Out of the frying pan and into the deep freeze. Blah-di-blah-di-blah, the family is then shipped west to Richmond, British Columbia.

Now we fast forward to 1991. Young Captain Dumbass finds himself in Montreal, broke and aimless after chasing a girl here. He's just come back from a four month European drink fest and he has just enough money to get him back to his home town of Kamloops, British Columbia. Now fate leans in and bitch slaps the Captain... although I guess back then we should be referring to him as PFC. Dumbass. Anyway, instead of asking for a one way Greyhound ticket to his home town, Private Dumbass asks for a ticket to Vancouver. And yes, Greyhound as in bus. Almost 5000 kilometres or over 3000 miles. On the bus. In winter. There is nothing romantic about this. It is soul crushing and excruciatingly boring. The trip should take roughly three days, however, due to earlier than usual warm weather, mudslides and flooding turn the young Privates trip into a 6 day journey through unwashed Hell.

About day five into the odyssey he realizes his mistake with the ticket and calls his mother who then calls his grandparents in Vancouver to alert them. At about six o'clock in the morning the next day, Private Dumbass shows up on his grandparents front steps, exhausted and smelling much like the Ark must have the day before it grounded. His loving grandparents, who love him the most because he was their first, feed him, clean him off (hose him off before they'll let him in) and send him off to bed. While he sleeps they leave to do some grocery shopping at a nearby supermarket. As they leave the store they notice that they are hiring and they bring their favourite grandson home an application. Later in the day he awakes for lunch, fills out the application and takes it back with his grandfather. He is hired the next day and goes to work in the bakery. Where it just so happens a young Supreme Leader is also working.

And that's how we met. And, just to round everything out, we live two blocks from the church that sponsored SL's family into Canada.

25 comments:

  1. Captain, good job, I didn't think to try the bakery. Though there are some hotties, I've noticed, and you might get a discount on the wedding cake.
    I met my Supremenessesesese at a club. I'm telling YOU that. Not my daughter.

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  2. THAT is an interesting story! I'm going to totally leech of you and use this topic tomorrow, heh. Although I'll substitute my own words for some of your words.

    I had my own share of soul-crushing Greyhound adventures, although none of them factored into how I met my beautiful wife.

    Do you still bake? Can you email me a croissant? :D

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  3. Great story! Ok, and tomorrow we can email a topic, because this 30-day thing may be harder than I realized.
    I'm duly impressed at your ability to turn my word verifications into solid meanings... but I'm sure you knew I would be.

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  4. Oh good God, 6 days on a bus and you are still alive? And I inspired the return to these memories, as well as some snarky commentary from SL? I rock!

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  5. That was so sweet. Much better than my drunken meet up (I mean hook up) with my ex at a bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Yeah, that screamed "stability".

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  6. Love the PITA comment!!!!
    So, you can bake?

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  7. Good thing your grandparents hosed you off first. So thoughtful.

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  8. Great story, although you really should have added ninjas. They would have rounded things out nicely..

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  9. I agree with SK that ninjas would have been a perfect fit for the story too but I also like the story as is.

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  10. Bet you had a little bus stench residual on you when you went to return the application. Despite your stench (or perhaps because of it?), Supreme Leader was awestruck.

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  11. Like Mama Dawg I am pretty sure I met my husband when drinking was involved.

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  12. This is a beautiful story! I'm sure Lifetime Television for women would have picked it by now, but there isn't enough domestic violence on your end. How wonderful is it that a teeny mistake and grandparents that didn't want you mooching off them, allowed you to meet the best thing that ever happened to you?

    Okay, so is it illegal to have guest posts during your 30 days? I would kill to hear Supreme Leader's take on meeting you. Was there swooning? Perhaps kissing behind the doughnuts? Spill it!

    Also, I mentioned this to Jeremy last night, I am secretly kind of looking forward to the week of the 17th. By that time all you 30-dayers will be like zombies searching for something to write about. Well, except for you, I imagine it's been quite an exercise in restraint not posting 4 times a day.

    Another also, if I can't be first, then I'm going to the the longest. (that's actually what HE said.)

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  13. Please, please, please tell me you said somethng Awesome, like, "Hey! Those are some Great Buns you have there!" Or, "Could you show me how to make this rise?"

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  14. oooooh yes, I want to hear her side too!!

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  15. Got the cookie recipe up. I'll be forced to make more tonight from the nutritionally challenged boys that live at my home.

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  16. Great story, but I agree with Steenky Bee (as usual) I think you eneded the story a bit early. What happened after your eyes met over the sheet cakes? Did you immediately fall in love, and get married soon thereafter? I think there's a sequel waiting to be written.

    Kamloops! Kamloops!

    I just like saying it.

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  17. Sweet! I like that story! I sure wish I had some awesome halloween pics to send, but alas, we did not dress up this year.

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  18. I am touched to see how you rose up through the ranks to become Captain Dumbass.

    It's inspiring. I hope you make General Dumbass.

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  19. That is a great story...but how long before you two realized you were meant for eachother? On your first date, did you both smell of bakery goodness? We are going to need many many more details.

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  20. Embellish? No one does that on blogs. I'm horrified that the topic was even broached.

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  21. Damn it, I was too late and someone took my "rising" and "buns" comment.
    And PITA? Bwahahahahahahhaha!!

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  22. great story -

    6 days on a bus -
    good lord

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  23. My husband, H, and I met in community theatre. Several years later, H's brother met his wife in community theatre. We think my husband's sister is weird, as she met her husband at a party, and that's clearly just not done.

    Cool story!

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  24. awesome. makes my story BORING.
    ;)

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Come on, sailor. I love you long time.