7/28/10

Derek + Elizabeth: In Between Days
By Jeremy Rhueger


Previously…
Meeting Elizabeth made me feel perfectly alive.
My girlfriend is going to kill me.


I was seventeen years old when I met Lynn. We met one summer afternoon while working at the local rec center. Work is the place to pick up chicks, apparently. In a way, you could say that I and Lynn should have never happened.

I had fallen under the spell of a girl named Tanya the previous school year. On the day of our final exam, I finally mustered up the courage to ask her to be my girlfriend. You have to put this in perspective: I wasn’t accustomed to the whole “two dates and then on the third you’re a couple” rule. I had never done this sort of thing before. So what did I do? Stupid me broke the first rule in picking up chicks: always get their phone number, and never give them yours.

She never called. You live and you learn.

Luckily I happened to meet Lynn about a month after I stopped sitting by the phone every day, waiting for Tanya to call.

Lynn was easy to notice. She had long dark locks of beautiful curly hair, even though she’ll argue with you to the death about “how bad it looks.” Personally I’m not a leg or thigh man, but she had gams from here to Kalamazoo let me tell you. To top it off, she had a rack of legendary proportions.

I’m a guy; this is how we talk about our ladies when they aren’t around.

But nine times out of ten, the pretty ones are generally the ones with the most baggage. Lynn was in the bottom 90% of that statistic. She was the kind of girl who was living in perpetual denial, especially when it came to her looks. Now at first, I just thought she was humble, maybe even modest. She was the hottest thing on two feet when we first started dating. If you ask her, however, she’ll tell you she’s a “monstrous cow with all the fat in the world.” It always puzzled me, and it still does to this day. Six years together, she’s still riding the waves of the Nile River.

But these days my attention has been paid elsewhere: Elizabeth Nepal.

I would always eagerly anticipate the days we got to work together at the store. We work at Milt’s, one of those “big box” retailers. You know, the giant warehouse where you can buy industrial-sized pallets of macaroni and cheese for you and your six bratty kids.

We quickly became the best “work friends” two people could be. We would always have fun and joke around during our downtime. She has a wonderful laugh; I don’t think I’ve heard it anywhere else.

On one of the slower days, we found ourselves hanging out in the back warehouse, where all of our shipments come in. I’ll never forget what she wore that day as we sat on the still conveyor belt high above the ground floor, swinging our feet as we passed the time together. She looked beautiful.

“I gotta say, I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun at work,” I said.

“Me either,” she said as she swung her feet in unison. She also had gams from here to Kalamazoo, God bless ‘em.

“I just hope you don’t think I’m a weirdo.”

“No. I hope you don’t think I’m a weirdo,” she smiled.

Signed, sealed, and delivered: I’m yours.


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Some people like to work hard, and some people don't give a fuck. And then there's Jeremy Rhueger