antique love

Throughout the years of driving the same route to and from work not much changes in the way of scenery with the exception of random roadside construction. One of my favorites for some reason was that of a tree company. The pronunciation to this day still eludes me. I would see them everywhere. There was something about the sheer volume of organized destruction and speed that amazed me. Like a storm they came in with little warning, made their noise and onto the next location all with the minimal amount of disturbance to local traffic. 

Houses rarely changed, yards and driveways again the same day in and day out with the exception of a freshly cut lawn or maybe some new tulips planted around the mailbox. Business the same, maybe a new sign in the window proclaiming lowest prices of a special of some sort. The cars were even the same as I drove by every morning and night, which made sense. For the longest time I had ignored the obvious and continually questioned why the same cars always were there. Different days and couple minutes difference from time to time and there could be a strange car, or the red Corolla might not be in spot 2. For entertainment purposes my imagination would drift off to where the Toyota Sienna with the “salt life” sticker disappeared to if I hadn’t seen for over a week. That one was simple; the little ones grew up and moved out, so the parents packed up sold the minivan and moved to Cabo for sun and surfing. Jealous! But I’m sure it wasn’t that exotic, rather just a new job new start time.

Spring was in the air and with that came the events, shows, tours and festivals. Just like the nature of spring, life was popping up all over that is except for the roadside scenery. Then then again, the Clancy’s, my name for the occupants of the yellow, teal house, they got a rose bush. My excited was overwhelming me now, I could barely hold a straight line. While in such extasy and creeping into the shoulder what should I see but a new sign. It was small, white with red letters and now in my rear-view mirror by this time. Tomorrow I could read it. I would guess a week had gone by and I saw the sign a. n and realized I had wanted to read what was on it last week. Somehow I must of forgotten or there must have been something so incredibly fascinating that I got distracted. What it was I don’t know, however, and by this time again I had missed what the sign had read. I knew I would lose sleep over the anticipation of what the red words were. The next day, I remembered to read, I paid attention. COMING IN MAY ANTIQUE ROADSHOW. And that was that.

I gave this no thought really for I was not very interested in antiques. I did, however, grow up in a house full of them. My parents’ friends had them as did my grandparents. I do remember when we would visit the one set, they would always pull us toward a great big chest of drawers that towered over my sister and me. It was always so shiny, smooth, and smelled of, what now I know was wood polish. My grandmother though would open the drawer third from the bottom and pull out some sort of craft or puzzle game to entertain us. My mom now has one of those for when my sister visits with her children. But now I know it was merely a distraction for them so she could take a break. Everything in the drawer was either from the dollar store or a garage sale. My dad even had an old friend that owned an antique restoration business, I wonder if he would be at this show.

I had been on a dating site, or sites for the past five years now although now I rarely looked at it. Maybe once a week, not because I had a date or a girlfriend but rather it just didn’t work. I still think it’s broken. In the beginning though I looked every day and wrote hundreds of letters which were met with disappointment. I do mean hundreds too, thousands and nothing. There was so much nothing that I had considered suing one of them on the grounds of not working properly and wasting my time and if it was broken then ruining my chance at a match that should have happened but never did. But I didn’t and life moved on. 

Tonight, I looked. Years ago, I would have lost it at the sight of this girl, but now I knew better. She was, however, maybe the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, not in person. I read her bio and short letter she wrote about herself and short consisted of two sentences. To me the girl was absolutely perfect, so I clicked on the write her feature and nothing. I was known as one with a pen and paper but literally nothing came out. That’s a lie, I got “hi” typed. Now from past experience I was pretty confident she didn’t exist or a scam, but I really wanted to write to her, and I really wanted her to be real, so I had to. But with just “hi” not sure how far that would get me. I’m guessing 30-45 minutes had passed and I still only had the word hi. Thinking how crazy this was and how much wasted time on someone I was fairly certain to be not real. Even if she was, the odds of her writing me back, zero. Then I concluded with myself as I thought of something I never think of at home, my drive to and from work and the sign I read. “Antique roadshow” so “Hi… Wil you be my date for the antique roadshow. And send.

She wrote back! I’m not talking days later or even hours almost instantly. She replied, “absolutely.”

We decided to take separate cars and meet there. I arrived in the parking lot first. I was always early, kind of an OCD thing when it came to time, but not so bad as to wreak havoc on my life. So, with that said, one minute past meeting time and I had not seen her. Her name was Renka. So of course, I started to think the worst, or the obvious, both of which I think would be the same and that was she really wasn’t real. We had never talked or written to each other except at a time and a place. That was it and it made it more mysterious, so I didn’t push to ask any more. I stared at the antique roadshow sign and back at my phone for the time. Five minutes passed. And on the 6^th a Toyota Sienna pulled up with only one passenger. I knew this had to be her. I thought to run up and open the door for her but I’m sure that could scare the crap out of her, instead I stood by my car with a single flower in my hand. When I saw her, I couldn’t believe my eyes and it took a moment for me to move as she came near. She looked at me, smiled then at the single flower and a giggle as she covered her mouth as if to conceal the giggle, but it was too late. Turned out though she couldn’t believe guys still did that and hugged me as she accepted it. I did notice a ‘salt life” sticker on the rear of her car as we made our way in. I thought, could this be?

Inside we found ourselves in the antique rug section of the show. Within five minutes I had learned she had zero interest in antiques as with me. I agreed with her and had no explanation for why I chose this as a first date. I did explain going to a fancy dinner that could take 1-2 hours as we sat 3 feet from each other, never have meeting before was just too much like an interview. So, we talked about that while inspecting the oriental and Persian rugs that hung from the ceiling. I would have preferred walking down the aisle of the supermarket than a dinner first date. I did have to reassure her or maybe reassure myself to not disregard a nice dinner date. She was in agreement, and she explained she was new to the area and had come from Virginia Beach with her 3-year-old daughter. Do I ask her? Yes, let’s ask her…

And yes, it turned out that was her Toyota Sienna in the parking lot I had seen for weeks and disappeared. Turned out I have my imaginative story backwards. That person didn’t move away to a new life but the opposite. I had a really good feeling that she thought the fact that I was that observant was rather amazing, or she was hiding the fact that she now thought I was a stalker. In any case we had finished our first aisle and actually hadn’t really noticed any of the rugs draped around us. She stopped at the end of the aisle and grabbed my hand and then the other and we stared at each as she slapped my chest and yelled “your it” “10 second head start.”

She ran off and disappeared as I counted out to 10 and I was off to find her in my first game of hide and seek since I was maybe 8. Down the aisle I went, the antique and ornate rugs hung long and wide and there were also stacks at the end of each aisle. Amazing in this somewhat small room she did a pretty good job of hiding, or had she just used that as an excuse and was actually driving away as I foolishly looked for someone that wasn’t there. Just then, however, I had that giggle and I stopped till I heard it once more. I grabbed her shoe, and she screamed as she tried to escape. With her effort and my reluctance to let go the oriental rug which she chose as a hiding spot came crashing down between us. As I stood up, we faced each other in shock as to what to do but I think more as to a feeling we might be sharing. I looked at her as the most beautiful girl I had ever met and couldn’t believe I was in this very spot with her. To me it seemed as though she was thinking the same thing. I think we both felt as if this might possibly be the greatest first kiss the world has ever seen. At least the greatest this antique roadshow had ever seen. Just as we were about to kiss a voice came to our interruption. A man was yelling about how much that rug was worth and why would we destroy such a display. Turns out that rug she chose to hide behind was worth over $9,000. So I grabbed her hand and we ran and luckily in this section there were aisles upon aisles of hiding spots. It was his turn now but instead we decided to just make a complete run for. Before we left, however, I stopped with her hand in my and gave her a first kiss that I think we would remember for the rest of our lives.