Derek and Victoria: The Night We Met (and met again)

The night that I met my husband, Derek, was the Friday before my first semester of college started. It was my first "college party." Had you told me I was going to meet my future husband at my very first party before my very first semester of college ever started, I would have acted annoyed and disbeliveing, but inside, i would have been pretty darn excited and secretly trying to imagine who he would be.

Now if someone had shown me a picture of him while I was still in HS, I would have laughed genuinely.

You see, I'm a short girl. In my pre-Derek days, I was all about those giant stiletto heels that made my legs look long, and my butt look...well...you know. Because I loved my high heels so much (I had over 30 pairs of just heels) I wanted to wear my heels, and have my man still make me feel small and dainty, as a result, I only dated guys who were over 6'. When i tell people this now, they laugh. And you have to! My dear sweet husband is about 3 or 4 inches taller than me. But he more than makes up for his height with his immense personality, boisterous voice, and complete devotion to me, the Crazy One.

My new roomies were excited to go to our first "college parties" (and I put "college parties" in quotes, because I went to BYU-I, so according to most others' definition of a college party, those found in Rexburg, Idaho were definitely not that. And I liked that.)

At the time I was driving my little 2 dr Ford ZX2. If you dont know what that is, my best way to describe it is by saying its a poor high school girls sportscar. But as far as cool cars in my high school went, mine was much better than the old station wagon or minivan that was frequently found in the parking lot. I loved that car, stick shift will forever be dear to me thanks to that car. Since i was the only one of my roommates with a car, I drove us to the first party, which was in a small park behind a mens housing complex.

After that party was done, we realized that my car battery had died, and so we needed a jump. What a great way to start your first year of college right? As it turned out, it was the perfect way, but we will get to that story another time.

I nice guy wearing torn jeans, a plaid shirt, flip flops, and who was hopelessly short, offered to jump my car for us, but his truck was on the other side of the park, so he went jogging across to go get his truck and bring it around for us.

not long after he left, an abnormally tall korean guy who had busted some pretty sweet break dancing moves at the party offered to give us a jump, and his honda was right there next to us already. One of my roommates, Alice, who liked every guy she saw and admitted to it, flirted it up with him while the battery charged. Then we left to go to a different party, without waiting for the short guy to bring his truck around. I know, we were jerks.

Two parties, and lots of dancing later, we ended up at one of the old rundown houses next to campus that look like they've been there since the 30's. And they probably have. My feet were already aching in my new black heels, even though i had chosen something slightly lower than what i usually wore. Walking across the spotty grass to the house I noticed a short guy. I say short becasue I was shallow enough that that was the first thing I noticed about him, and had decided not to like him. As it turned out, he was annoying all on his own. He approched me and started flirting shamelessly and obviously, using this, "Im a white boy, but im still so fly" Vanilla Ice sounding voice. Irritating. But I figured hey, as long as he's here why not practice on how to lose a guy?

Apparently I sucked at that.

The whole beginning of the party Short Guy was standing between my friends and I talking about who knows what, and I remember just being so annoyed that this Short Guy was wasting my time, and scaring off any others from approaching me.

But then a REALLY cute guy walked in, Definitely the cutest one there. And as luck would have it, Short Guy apparently knew him. So the roomies and i decided to deal with Short Guy so we could try to talk to Cute Hispanic Guy. Of course, Alice went swooping in for the kill, and Short Guy went on blabbering at me. I rolled my eyes at my other roommate, T, but was surprised when I felt my phone being pulled out of my lap. More than annoyed I watched Short Guy put his number in my phone, then pass me his, and although his obnoxious persistence was grating, i couldn't help but be a little impressed at how confident he was, even though I was clearly ignoring him, My family had given me the nickname of "Ice Queen," and rightly so, I was brutal and quickly shut down any attempts to flirt with me if I wasn't interested. But this guy must have been nicknamed "Annoying Ray of Sunshine" because as much as he bothered at me first, his constant talking to me was starting to make me like him.

As soon as I started to actually WANT to flirt with him, he said he was meeting some friends to watch a movie at his place, and had to leave. But then he invited us to join him, and told us to text him for directions.

Having lost Alice to a group of loud, rowdy, boys who promised to get her back home, it was just T and me. Our first night out and we hated to admit it, but we were exhausted. We didn't want to go home until we absolutely had to though, so we texted Short Guy. When we got to his place, and came in the door, i was surprised, and completely miffed because he didn't even answer the door, just told us to come on in, we walked in, and the room is empty, except for him, sitting on one of two couches with his arm around a girl and they were both engulfed in a giant, hideous blanket. So we settled down to watch the most boring movie i have ever had the misfortune of watching, and i fell asleep within the first 20 minutes. And started snoring. Loudly.

I remember being woken up by something, not sure if I snored myself awake or T nudged me, but i looked over and could see Short Guy doing the silent laugh at me and shaking his head. Thankfully, the movie was over now, and I quickly found my shoes, my keys, and got out of there as quickly as I could. Before I fell asleep, I looked through the numbers I had gotten that night and stopped at Derek. I wondered if I should delete him, since he already seemed like a such a tool, but still wanting to keep it because as much as he bothered me, i still kind of liked him. I rationalized myself into keeping it, saying that he still had my number, so this way, if he called me, I would know who it was so i could screen his calls.

Ha. Fat chance. He called me the next day. And I answered.