Friday, June 22, 2007

Three Cheers for Public Transportation

This afternoon on the bus:

Sweaty Random, oblivious to the fact that I am reading AND have headphones in: How long have you been married?
Me: Pardon?
SR: How long have you been married?
Me: Six months.
(huge awkward pause where he just smiles and nods at me)...
Me: How long have YOU been married?
SR: Five years. Best five years of my life.
Me: Cool. (big pause where he stares and nods some more) Any kids?
SR: Yeah, four boys and three girls. The oldest one is 19 and plays football at the U and the youngest one will be born in July. They all have A names (he lists the names and says "Alicia" twice).
Me: Wow! 7 kids in 5 years!
SR: Well, they're my step-kids, because they're my wife's kids. I served my mission in Brazil, and we went there on our honeymoon. because my wife's dad is a pilot so we can fly places for free. Next month we're going to Hawaii for our 5 year anniversary.
Me: Hawaii! Awesome. What about the baby?
SR: The baby's coming, too. We're leaving July 13 and the baby is coming July 15. Her uncle is a doctor, so he'll just take care of that while we're there. But our Brazil trip was way fun, and my mission was awesome.
Me: Cool. When were you there?
SR: 1998-2001. I served a 3 year mission because of extensions and transfers and stuff.
Me: So, your wife must be a lot older than you.
SR: No, she's actually younger than me. I'm 28 and she's 26.
Me: (confused pause as I do the math between her 19 year old kid and her age)
SR: She's way taller than me too. I'm only 5'8".
Me: Really? How tall is she?
SR: 6'9".
Me: Whoa! So she can carry you around and stuff?
SR: Yeah, she gives me piggy backs a lot. Her brother's 8 feet tall, playing professional basketball in the Ukraine right now. Our son, who plays football, he's 6'9" too.
Me: Wow. That's huge. He must weigh a lot.
SR: Yeah, he's 175 lbs. He's friends with the coach, so we get really good seats, and the coach said I can sit on the sidelines and even come into the locker room whenever I want. Our son is studying speech pathology. I do construction work, but I'd like to get into something like that.
Me: Cool. What does your wife do?
SR: She actually has a law degree under her belt, so she is looking for stuff like lawyer work right now.
Me: Really? Wow. Where'd she go to law school?
SR: Back east. Harvard. She does criminal law.

Conversation overheard next to us: "Colorado Springs? No way! My high school sweetheart's step-dad's brother was sheriff in the neighboring county!"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE BUS CRAZIES. Thank you for saying your wife is six nine and gives you piggy backs, man.

Supalinds said...

KOOOO KOOOOO

Megan said...

brilliant! keeps the spice in your life.

Natalie said...

your blog is so funny my friend Marianne added you to her "blogs i read" link list. She titled you "i don't know this girl".

I am dying! that is the best story ever!