Five Years Ago: hot dogs, a chevron and a cute boy

Five years ago around this time, I was devastated. My missionary that I was "in love" with had left earlier that month and I was sooo sad. Actually sad is an understatement, I was writhing in the depths of despair. I distinctively remember running up the stairs of my dorm room bawling, a really horrible ugly cry and my BFF Melissa (none other than Charlotte Melissa's namesake) came rushing to my side. I cried for hours. I have honestly never cried that long before that or since that time.

The days past and I wrote my missionary everyday. I was diligent and determined. I didn't go out much on the weekends, VERY VERY unusual. My much loved "baby dodge" truck stood still in the snow covered parking lot. My grades had never been so good! I had never gotten more sleep, oh boy how that was going to change.

It is all my mother's doing actually, I was on the phone with her while finishing up my talk for church the next day. I was saying how lonely I was, blah, blah, blah. I was a shadow of my former self. My mom, who is always on my team, and always tell me the truth, even though it is NOT always what I want to hear, told me that I needed to get out and do something, have fun! This was the best time of my life, I grudingly agreed and I went down the hall to find my girls and see if they wanted to do something.

They were ecstatic! You see I was the only one with a car, and pretty much that meant that we always went everywhere in the baby dodge and they had been missing her. We decided to be crazy and do one of our favorite p-town activities....hot-dogging. Hot dogging consists of taking cold hot dogs, and hurling them out of a moving vehicle at passersby. I know this is a very, very juvinielle activity, but none the less, we loved it. And off we went..

First stop was the gas station. The Chevron right by the LaVell Edwards statium. We had to gas up since the baby dodge had been neglected. Just before pulling out, we saw this group of guys walking into the store. I caught the eye of one of them. He was tall and dark, definitely handsome. I rolled down the passenger window and had my friend hurl a hot dog in his direction. He was confused, wouldn't you be, but he had the attention of a car full of cute girls and he wasn't about to pass that up. He came over to chat and we decided to make it a co-ed hot dogging experience. They jumped in our car and we were off. We laughed and laughed and then we all went back to one of their apartments to hang out.

The conversation flowed, we talked sports, school, golf and all of the usual things. I even found myself flirting. What was my problem?! I had a missionary, then he casually asked if any of us had boyfriends, all of us went down the line, I was the last to answer and my answer was NO. All of my girls looked at me, stunned. The past three weeks I had been a crying, moping, ridiculous wreck and now I was a flirting, giggling boyfriendless co-ed. I was back.

We had to leave, the night was getting late. And we just walked away, no numbers exchanged, to be honest, I was surprised. We obviously had a flirtatious connection and he seemed into it. Just as we got in the car, I stayed there for a second thinking. I needed to give him my number. I wrote it on a piece of paper and just as I was going to put it on his car, I hear a knock at my window. "I just realized that if I ever want to throw hot dogs again, I don't have your number." Numbers were exchanged and from that moment on we were inseprable.

I never looked back. We were meant to be. Eight weeks later we were engaged. Five years ago, my life changed forever, thanks to some hot dogs, a chevron station and the cutest boy I ever saw.