And then I crawled out from under the table

--my father, upon hearing the following story retold by my girlfriend (then, wife now).

I responded along the lines of "I guess I just haven't hit that stage yet." They laughed.

In high school I was somewhat deliberately dense toward the girls who obviously liked me. Fortunately, they were willing to still be my friend, and sit in my lap on bus rides, etc. There was one sort-of relationship, but that's another story.

Then college struck, and as I once explained to my friend Erika, "I pretty much assumed that I was going to be single with a bunch of female friends, but none I'm willing to risk dating" but I found myself to be very, very wrong. Within one month of each other, three girls became very attracted to me.

And that's not even counting the one I used to sleep with.

Regardless, this is supposed to be about how I met Jessica, the woman I love.

A group of my friends and I would hang out at a coffee shop in the dorm next to the one we pretty much all lived in. We hung out there a lot. The counter people knew us by name. They'd even let me get away with ordering a shot of flavored syrup in water--an excellent beverage for those of us who'd previously spent all of our cash on mochas.

Anyway, one such gathering of friends, plus a couple extras led to me getting squished in a booth, and I crawled under the table. Especially since Dave was pushing my tool into my leg. My Leatherman, that is.

Despite the light-hearted taunts and soft kicks I remained under the table for a good almost hour. Finally, I decided to emerge, and when I did, I noticed that there were two new people sitting at the end of the booth. So I grabbed a chair, sidled up next to the girl on the end, and asked her how she was doing.

She gave me an honest answer, something about her mom giving her a hard time on the phone.

And that's how we met.