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Since I have the sads and there’s a goddamn pandemic happening, does anybody want to hear the story of how I started dating my husband due to an infectious illness and a bout of self-quarantine??!!
I met my husband Jake at a bar sometime in fall of 2003. I have NO IDEA when specifically, bc everything happened so fast. All I know is that I was dating this one dude on my birthday (Oct 1st), a different dude on Halloween, but by thanksgiving we were basically living together.
I share this not to brag (ok maybe just a little), but the important thing to know is that I was totally not interested in monogamy at the time. I was in college. I was in a band. My hair was fucking amazing.
Jake had just moved back to town after a failed attempt to be a documentary filmmaker. He’d dropped out of college and moved to Chicago with a couple of close friends the week before September 11th. By the time he moved back he was INCREDIBLY skinny and totally jaded.
The best thing about Jake is how he has NO IDEA how handsome he is. So most people don’t realize he’s incredibly handsome until they’ve met him a few times. He floored me during our first conversation because he did a thing no other guy had ever done: HE LISTENED TO ME.
We started talking about books and I mentioned an author I was into and rather than offering his opinion or trying to tell me why I shouldn’t like that author/book/whatever he said “tell me what you like about it?” And then we had an honest conversation. Fucking groundbreaking.
We ran in the same circles so I very quickly realized that A: he was handsome B: he was intelligent, and C: I liked him very much. Jake had basically dated 2 women in his entire life (3 if were being generous) so he was initially kind of intimidated by me. I don’t blame him.
Finally a mutual friend suggested he come to one of my sets. My band had a weekly gig at Andymans Treehouse where we’d play folkrock tear-in-my-beer tunes and Murder ballads (my specialty). Later on he told me that’s when he fell in love. Again, I don’t blame him
I was in-it-to-win-it BUT he had this old-fashioned idea of how we should proceed. He kept telling me he wanted to take me out on a date - but wanted to make it special - so he had to wait until he got paid. I countered and said I was gonna take HIM OUT once I got paid.
This went on for like a week. Each of us bragging about the awesome date we were going to subject the other to once we had money. The stakes got pretty high. I was promised champagne. I tried to make him understand that I was not that type of girl. I didn’t have “standards.”
Meanwhile I found out that he was - at one point - a semi-professional pool player. Like one of those guys who could run a table from break to 8-ball. It was maybe one of the hottest things I’d ever witnessed. And he wasn’t a dick about it. It was just this low-key super power.
SO FINALLY after 2 weeks of this mutual stand-off AND 20 straight days of flirting AND countless pool games (that I always lost) AND probably a few too many beers I leaned over to him and said “I’ve honestly never been a patient woman so why don’t you just come home with me?”
So this is where the infectious illness comes in. We had a great night. (I’m no lady but these details don’t belong on Twitter). I WILL say that certain character traits (like listening and caring) translate really well into other areas of interaction.
The next morning he left for work, saying he’d call me later to hang out. I tried to focus on literally anything other than immediately calling him bc I had to PLAY IT COOL. But also, weirdly... I had a fever? I headed to urgent care for a once-over.
He called and asked how I was doing. I was still PLAYING IT COOL so I casually responded “I’m fine, how are you?” And then he says “well I’m just walking home from the doctor- turns out I have strep.”
So then I said “ok I lied I just came from urgent care I have strep too.”
So then I said “ok I lied I just came from urgent care I have strep too.”
He knew I had a gig that weekend and was distraught, convinced he gave me strep and that I’d have to cancel the show. He told me to go home and rest and he’d be there in an hour to take care of me.
So this boy, sick with strep (and pretty sleep deprived TBH) biked 2 miles to the store IN THE COLD to buy everything he’d need to make me chicken noodle soup from scratch. He called from the store to make sure I had butter, garlic, and black pepper. I said “of course I do.”
So he showed up at my house and his backpack contained the following:
-An entire goddamn chicken
-a pound of carrots
-a pound of potatoes
-a bunch of celery
-shit tons of onions
And his favorite egg noodles. He goes looking for the butter, garlic, and black pepper.
-An entire goddamn chicken
-a pound of carrots
-a pound of potatoes
-a bunch of celery
-shit tons of onions
And his favorite egg noodles. He goes looking for the butter, garlic, and black pepper.
Imagine his dismay when I hand him
-a tub of country crock
-a jar of pre-minced garlic
-and that little tin shakey can of McCormick black pepper
-a tub of country crock
-a jar of pre-minced garlic
-and that little tin shakey can of McCormick black pepper
So he goes BACK OUT TO THE STORE to buy actual butter & actual garlic & actual whole black pepper. At one point he was using my rolling pin to smash the peppercorns into smal enough pieces (bc obvs I did not have a pepper grinder).
It was the best soup I’ve ever had in my life.
It was the best soup I’ve ever had in my life.
For the next 4 days we stayed in and ate soup and blew our noses and talked and read books and watched bad movies and slept, like, A LOT.
At my gig that weekend our mutual friend asked how it was going and I joked that I wasn’t letting him leave. That I was keeping him under my bed.
At some point he realized that my idea of “coffee” was throwing Folgers into my Mr. CoffeeMaker so we stopped by his place to “get some things.” He grabbed his French press, his Wüsthof santoku knife, and a change of clothes. He literally never slept there again 
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We give each other a lot of shit about those days - he likes to pick on me for having to be the one to teach me about actual butter and I like to remind him of his sad existence before he met me.
Like how the first time I walked into his room it consisted of
-one sad twin mattress on the floor
-one desk
-one chair
-one lamp
-4 books
-a typewriter
-one pair of jeans
-three pair of underwear
-two sets of dress blacks (for work)
-one sad twin mattress on the floor
-one desk
-one chair
-one lamp
-4 books
-a typewriter
-one pair of jeans
-three pair of underwear
-two sets of dress blacks (for work)
I like to think about how we started off both convinced we didn’t need anyone else but then we met each other and spent those first weeks trying to take care of the other person.
And here we are almost 17 years later and I think we’re still doing everything we can to help one another. We’ve stopped pretending we don’t need it. He still makes me chicken noodle soup from scratch every time I get sick. Now I make it for him too.
So that’s it - that’s the story of how I met my husband. I like to kid and say we never would have gotten together if it weren’t for strep throat, but that’s probably not true. I would have found another way to trap him. He was super hot.
Y’all I thought that’s where this thread would end but I literally just walked into the kitchen to find my husband making me chocolate covered strawberries bc the Trader Joe’s brand I’m addicted to been sold out for weeks and it has been making me very sad.
