I once owned a magic dry-erase board. True story. Any task applied to the board would eventually get done. The board saw such mundane entities as vacuum and call landlord about dryer, as well as more complicated items like algebra test Thursday, and please remove the bong from the living room before my mom arrives. I acquired the dry-erase board well before I met my last roommate before getting married. Said roommate and I would frequently communicate via the board, and the board often featured a running commentary of miscellaneous things to be done/bought/cleaned/whatever. It was affixed to the wall by a nail driven through a giant metal clamp, which I had purchased to secure some random art project. Originally the board came with its own adhesive, but that had long since worn out.
It came as little surprise one day, when my friend and neighbor, who I will call Gwen in order to keep her online presence minimal, noticed the magical qualities of the dry erase board and added find Gwen a boyfriend to the list of tasks on hand (which included finding me a new job). My roommate, Bee, and I looked at each other and thought, ok, we'll get right on that as soon as we're finished vacuuming and bong-hiding.
Meanwhile, in another part of the woods, I had also joined a running group. The typical Saturday routine for Bee, Gwen, and me consisted of Gwen and I going off and running with our different running groups, while Bee went to work. Gwen and I would return from running very, very hungry and would eat a bunch of scrambled eggs with veggies and cheese and toast and then proceed to fall asleep in whatever apartment we were in. It was Bee's job to come home from work and wake us up so Bee and I could proceed with our ridiculous Saturday afternoon grocery-shopping routine. Gwen tended to avoid this bit of mayhem.
My running group was headed by my former running coach, from when I signed up to run my very first marathon through Team in Training. Through my running group, I met this guy, Winchester. Somehow, we became the same pace. I say somehow because we're now very different paces. And at the time, Winchester had no idea how fast we were running. We'd go off for a run of 6, or 8, or 12, or 15 miles and I'd TALK the whole time. He'd figure, we're not working that hard: Virginia's talking the whole time. As it turns out, we were moving fairly quickly, and he managed to learn a whole lot more about me than I did about him. Nonetheless, I discerned some important pieces of information. Winchester 1) had a great sense of humor; in fact he performed stand-up comedy; 2) was terrific with children; and 3) loved animals.
This is not exactly my list of qualifications in a man, since I don't want any kids of my own, and I'm allergic to just about every animal ever, but I figured they'd be good for Gwen, who is quirky, teaches music to elementary-aged children, and has this cat, Jordan, who's around 100 years old in cat-time and figures it gives him the right to be a crotchety old man.
Of course, this wasn't all fireworks and unicorns right away. Nothing would be more awkward than me saying to Gwen and Winchester, you're perfect for each other, now go ahead and get married. Winchester was shy, Gwen was gun-shy, having recently gotten out of a messy relationship, Winchester had some budgetary constraints, and frankly, I was having trouble describing each one to the other. In the world of dating, everyone wants to know what everyone looks like, not what they're like. And despite the fact that I know that both Gwen and Winchester are super-powered rock stars, they're not the sorts of people who'll make the cover of Glamour or GQ. Which is really everyone else's loss.
So, fast-forward about a year and a half to my wedding. Gwen was a bridesmaid, Winchester was a guest. I was determined that between the alcohol, the music, and the festive environment, the two of them could find about seven words to say to each other. Until I caught Gwen's mother DANCING with Winchester! To be fair, Gwen's mom was young when she had Gwen, and Winchester is old enough to sort of fall in between the mother and daughter in terms of age. Nonetheless, this was not what I was aiming for at all.
I remember turning to someone and saying, that's not what's supposed to be happening, AT ALL. I'm not sure who intervened, and it doesn't really matter. When you're the one in the big white dress, you get to make all of the rules. And miraculously, somehow, Gwen and Winchester managed to exchange phone numbers.
The day after my wedding we were loading boxes into the u-haul that my brother-in-law was driving to California for us, and I saw Gwen's note still on the dry-erase board, as well as many cross-outs from last minute moving and wedding things. I shrugged because I figured I had done about all I could do on that front.
We packed up and moved to California, where the dry-erase board made it's home in apartment. Captain America erased Gwen's note. Fortunately, by this time, Winchester had worked up the courage to ask her out on a few dates, and while I wasn't positive of their relationship status, I figured things were pretty much out of my control.
By the time we moved into our house, Gwen and Winchester were happily engaged and I was going to attend their wedding in a month or so. The dry-erase board had been stacked in the garage with a few other things that hadn't found a formal residence in our new home.
The dry-erase board met it's untimely death when Captain America pulled the truck into the garage and smashed a corner of it. Like a wily cat that doesn't want to be an indoor pet, the dry-erase board managed to finagle it's way into a place that was out of the line-of-sight of my husband as he drove into the garage. As soon as he heard the smash, he knew what happened, and when I returned home that day, I was met by a sad-faced husband who confirmed: I have a sad story for you.
We tossed it without ceremony into the trash bin. I told Captain America not to feel too bad; that dry-erase board had a longer and more productive life than anyone would have anticipated from it, and in all likelihood, we weren't going to get much more out of it: after all, it helped to find Gwen not just a boyfriend, but a husband.
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