It All Began at Chuck E. Cheese’s

It all Began at …

Chuck E. Cheese’s was the site of the blind date.

I had no idea, as I walked down the steps of City Hall back to my car on my first full day liv­ing back in Lodi after hav­ing been gone for sev­eral years, that a woman I shall call “D1,” a high school class­mate, hap­pened to drive down the street and see me. She went home, called my mother, and inquired if indeed that was me. My mother gave her my new phone num­ber, she called, and we decided to have drinks one night after work. We were not par­tic­u­larly close, but we would go out for a drink three or four times per year.

A cou­ple of years went by …

D1 said she was very unhappy in her mar­riage (to a guy with with whom I had played in a rock band at church and gone on one date in high school). She decided to “take a break” for a week or so dur­ing which she planned to check into a hotel to “think” about the mar­riage, her life and the deci­sions she needed to make.

The very first night of her break, how­ever, she called and asked me to meet her for a mar­garita. I agreed. As we were talk­ing, she announced that she wanted to see her boyfriend, so she was going to call and ask him to join us.

“Swell,” I thought to myself, as I instantly under­stood why she was unhappy and sup­posed to be in a hotel room alone think­ing rather than at home with her hus­band and son. I could have gone home then, but I con­fess that I was curi­ous about the boyfriend.

And I was only half-serious when I said, “Well, tell him to bring a friend because I don’t want to sit here watch­ing the two of you suck face.” She came back from the pay phone (no cell phones yet) and announced that her boyfriend, “D2,” would be join­ing us shortly.

“He’s bring­ing his ex-brother-in-law, Bob. He says Bob’s a real nice guy and thinks you two might hit it off.”

I fig­ured that I could carry on a con­ver­sa­tion with any­one, even a stranger named Bob, for an hour or so. It was Mon­day night and I had the per­fect excuse for leav­ing early if he turned out to be a loser — I had to be at work by 8:00 a.m. the next morning.

In a lit­tle while, D1 was intro­duc­ing me to D2. When I looked at the guy with him and said, “Oh, you must be Bob,” D2 explained that Bob did not feel like going out that evening, so “R” had accom­pa­nied him instead.

A few weeks later, D1 left her hus­band and began see­ing D2 reg­u­larly and openly. One Fri­day night, they wanted to go out and have some fun, but it had to be a kid-friendly activ­ity because it was D1’s week­end with her four-year-old son.

D2 called me to ask for my ideas and it was then that I jok­ingly asked him, “Hey, what hap­pened to your ex-brother-in-law, Bob? You promised me Bob the nice guy. You owe me, buddy.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I for­got all about that. I was going to set you up with Bob, wasn’t I? He is a really nice guy. I just know that you two would really like each other. I’m going to see if he wants to go out with us tonight.” D2 called back and said that yes, his ex-brother-in-law, Bob, would be join­ing us.

At Chuck E. Cheese’s.

Say what?

After he explained the ratio­nale, I had to admit that it made sense. Pizza and beer, along with a big play area, a guy in a mouse suit, video games … it was a kid-friendly envi­ron­ment where the grown-ups could also have a rea­son­ably good time.

So off to Chuck E. Cheese’s I went in my white v-neck sweater after I let my friend, Cindy, apply hootchy-mama makeup for me. I had never been on a blind date or worn that much make-up before in my life.

And there was Big­Bob in his Levi’s and boots.

We all went back to D2’s house after din­ner so that D1 could put her son to bed. I think we were plan­ning to play cards. But D1 and D2 pro­ceeded to get in a huge fight which, as it would turn out, was not unusual, prompt­ing Bob to refer to them to this day as “The Bick­er­sons.” Bob and I were stand­ing in the kitchen, feel­ing awk­ward and try­ing to pre­tend we weren’t hear­ing their con­ver­sa­tion. As we talked qui­etly, he sud­denly grabbed me and gave me a giant bear hug.

I remem­ber think­ing, “Well, that’s a move I haven’t seen before.” But it was def­i­nitely a “love struck” moment.

He asked me if I wanted to ditch D1 and D2.

“I sure do,” I told him. “I know just the place.”

So off we went to a restau­rant in the marina where my friend, Cindy-the-hootchy-mama-makeup-expert, and her band played. We had drinks, I sang “How Blue,” “Mama, He’s Crazy,” and a cou­ple of other tunes with Cindy and the guys … and the rest, as they say, is his­tory, just like D1 and D2. We saw them for the last time just a few months later. At one point, a num­ber of years ago, I heard from my step­daugh­ter that they mar­ried and moved to North or South Carolina.

That was April 1985. I jok­ingly tell peo­ple that “Well, after that blind date, he just sort of never went home. He was lurk­ing around my apart­ment so much that I fig­ured I’d bet­ter marry him,” which I did on Novem­ber 2 of that year. The church wed­ding was all planned and just five weeks off. Sit­ting here now, I can’t recall what pos­sessed us to elope … isn’t that funny? It was a great idea, though, because we got mar­ried at a lit­tle wed­ding chapel in Mey­ers, which is right on the California-Nevada bor­der. We were out­side in a gazebo beside a lit­tle stream with the snow glis­ten­ing up on the moun­tains. Just the two of us, the min­is­ter, and his wife. We used the same vows that we would use in church a few weeks later. Then we went to din­ner in Old Sacra­mento and the gen­tle­man at the piano bar played for us. It was very roman­tic. The next day, Big­Bob was bummed at hav­ing to take off his wed­ding ring and go to work with a big secret. But he did.

For the first sev­eral years of our mar­riage, none of our friends or fam­ily knew that we were already mar­ried by the time we came down the aisle in church and recited those same vows in front of them on Decem­ber 7, 1985. Except for my brother-in-law and the best man. We had to tell them because they had bet that we couldn’t wait for the church wed­ding and we had to inform them that the best man won — no pun intended. I’ve also for­got­ten now just how much money my brother-in-law lost on that wager.

My par­ents found out a few years after we were mar­ried, although I never intended to tell them.

One day, they were help­ing me clean out some clos­ets. As I was putting clothes into a bag des­tined for char­ity, my mother held up the mauve sweater I wore to the wed­ding chapel that day and asked me if I wanted to keep it.

“Of course! I got mar­ried in that sweater,” I blurted out.

Oops!

Both of my par­ents stared at me with their mouths hang­ing open. So I had to show them the photos.

They were baf­fled. After all, they were prairie peo­ple. Prac­ti­cal peo­ple descended, as I jok­ingly tell peo­ple, from the fun cou­ple depicted in “Amer­i­can Gothic.” Folks like that don’t plan a church wed­ding and then run off and do some­thing so ridicu­lous as elope five weeks early, dontcha­know. Uffda!

My father just sat there for awhile. Finally, he asked me why we did it. I really couldn’t give him a good rea­son. We just did it because … well, it seemed like a cool thing to do.

After all, it was much more roman­tic in some ways than the church wed­ding. It was very pri­vate. And iron­i­cally, Big­Bob was much calmer dur­ing the ini­tial cer­e­mony and enjoyed it more. I’ll never for­get how sweaty his hands were dur­ing the church ser­vice. In fact, that was the first and last time in all these years that I have ever known him to have sweaty palms. Later, I asked him, “What was up with that? We were already mar­ried, so why were you so ner­vous?” He explained that say­ing the words in front of every­one in such a for­mal set­ting was just unnerv­ing for him.

As for my father, the only thing he ever said about the elope­ment was: “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have rented that damn tux.” Harumph.

But I’m so glad he did. Oth­er­wise, I would not have this very cher­ished photo:

 

After all, every girl wants to have her father walk her down the aisle. Even if she did secretly elope five weeks ear­lier with a guy she met on a blind date at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

Orig­i­nally pub­lished Feb­ru­ary 17, 2007.

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