M E P S

When people tell me that being a Marine is one of the toughest jobs on earth, I'm beginning to think that most of challenge is just getting into the Corp. Even the recruiters, who try to gloss over most of the paperwork as "simple" put the fear of fire and brimstone into recruits before going to MEPS. Military Entrance Program Stations are where the doctors make sure everything is working before drill instructors break it all down. As nervous as I was, the process wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. The doctors are actual people with skewed senses of humor (like: Why are there Marines on Navy capital ships? Well, the Army uses guard dogs for secure bases and the Army got to pick first). So the worst part was trying to track down paperwork that didn't exist (got shredded after 7 years of doing nothing). Of course, it was odd to leave my lovely wife all alone in our apartment, but she did get her best night's sleep without me rolling over her in the night. Imagine that.

Mostly Grown Up

So it has been nice playing grown up, settling into the apartment and buying furniture for more than ten bucks. It really started to make me feel like I was an actual adult. Don't worry, it didn't last long. Because apparently my hair didn't get the memo, so while I was feeling like a true blue readers digest afficionato, my hair was doing the Dennis the Menace. Emily noticed the rooster tail I was sporting as she cut my hair while I was watching a cartoon on her laptop. So maybe the hair wasn't the only thing not to realize I'm supposed to be grown up already. Anyway, the hair was bad enough that it had that Emily took a picture as a warning to future generations and it'll thankfully remain offline unless I really tick her off. Hopefully it can just fade away, like the mullet, only let's hope this one's permanent.

Matt's Point of View

Hi, so I'm Matt. I don't know what details Emily has told about how we met and our first dates, so I'm gonna tell it how I remember it. I think the best place to start, like the best place to start talking about Christmas gifts is with Santa Clause, is with Brenda. Remember, Brenda = Santa Clause, Emily = Christmas Gift. Now that I've made it as confusing as possible I can start. Brenda started telling me about her niece that I just had to meet. A lot of my mom's friends from relief society had nieces or grand daughters or recent parolees that I should really get to know, so I didn't exactly take it seriously. That started about novemberish of 2008, so i might have been a good thing I didn't rush off to find Emily. There's a right time and a wrong time to get a Christmas gift, open it early and Santa's unhappy, so I guess the time had to be right to find Emily.

Anyway, enough with the cheesy analogy. School let out for the Summer and I got call telling me that the niece was coming to town in a few days and was expecting a phone call to set up a date. This was with her niece, not a parolee, so I gave her a call and set up the date. It was simple, dinner alone and then board games with some friends. So simple, I'm surprised it fell through.

The first thing that happened when I went to Brenda's to pick her up, was a surprise from Erin (Brenda's Husband). He introduced Emily's sister as Emily. Emily's newly engaged and very much in love sister. I reached to shake her hand and she jumped nearly two feet to plaster herself against her fiancee with that engagement ring extended as far as she could get it without touching me. It was as awkward as it sounds, Heather and I are friends now though. I have to hand it to Erin, it couldn't have gone better if he had planned it.

The sandwich shop I had planned on was closed and so we had to improv a meal. Wal mart normally wouldn't cut it for a substitute, but tonight didn't start normal so I shouldn't have expected normal. She just seemed so calm despite the fact that I thought everything was going wrong. The one part that went according to plan was the board game. Four of my friends thankfully showed up on time to play a few games while my nephew tried desperately to join in.

He had been having .... issues.... like many eighteen month old children do, so I wasn't exactly thrilled about his addition to the fun. Ok, the past four nights in a row little Matthew had thrown up without warning and in some awkward places. He'd been eating gummy bears and technicolor vomit just wasn't going to go well on a first date. Thankfully, he kept the bears down until he got home and I got a yes when I asked Emily out about three weeks later.