I’m Getting Married

OK.  I’m not getting married…  But I can!

Well, no, actually, I can’t.  But if I could, then I could.

Maybe I better explain…

One summer when I was young, my sister and I were visiting my father and on one particular day, I overheard my father telling my sister about a popular “game”, when he was in high school that he heard the girls playing.  I assume it was the girls.  It sounds like a girls kind of game, but who knows.

Anyway, the game goes something like this.  You pick your favorite car.  Whatever your favorite car is, you look for it everyday all the time when you’re out and about and you count it; only, you only count the red ones, ’cause, you know red and love and all that.  Anyway, you count your favorite car, in red only, every time you see it and then when you reach 500, in theory, you will marry the next boy you kiss.

Erin’s favorite car at the time (roughly 1985) was the Mercury Cougar.  Mercury Cougars, in red, were not exactly common place and to be honest, I don’t know how far she got before she lost track, gave up, outgrew the game.

I didn’t see any reason why this had to be a girls only game.  I was such a romantic as a kid *cough, cough* yeah right *cough, cough*.  So I decided I’d count my favorite car, a Pontiac Fiero, in red only, of course.  I liked the Pontiac Fiero because it was, in my 10-year-old estimation, the closest attainable facsimile to a DeLorean/Time Machine I was ever going to get and that was enough for me.  Red Pontiac Fieros were a little easier to come by than red Mercury Cougars, but before too long my favorite car changed to something else and I had to start over.  And it changed again, and I lost count, and it changed again, and I lost count again, and eventually, I just gave up.  I was pretty young after all, marriage seemed a lifetime away.  Little did I know…

~~~~~

One of the first things that I discovered I had in common with Lil’B is that we are both very fond of Ford Mustangs.  We’ll be driving down the road and suddenly I’ll hear his low, excited voice from the back seat saying “Moostaaang!!!  I see one!  Over there!”  I quickly began to realize that THERE ARE MUSTANGS EVERYWHERE around here!

One day, just for grins and giggles I counted how many mustangs we saw.  I don’t remember what the count ended up being in a one day period and counting all of them, not just the red ones, but it was significant.  And counting them that day reminded me of this game my father had inadvertently taught me lo those many years ago. So I thought, “What the hell?  I’ll count the red, late-model mustangs, my dream car, and I’ll see how long it takes me to get to 500.”

And last night, on my way home from work, merely five months since I started counting, I passed my 5o0th red, late-model mustang on the highway.  And now the next guy I kiss, is the guy I’m going to marry… Right?

Look out boys!