A Love Story and a Lucky T-Shirt

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The day I met Andrew, I think I knew he was a good fit for me. I don’t want to say it was love at first sight or anything, because it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. But there was just something about him. And because I think you might be tiring of my “what I did this weekend” entries, I’m going to tell you about the day I met Andrew.

But first, the lucky T-shirt part of this story. Sometime in late high school, my dear friend Christy and I were thrift store shopping. We both saw this awesome T-shirt at the same time. This particular T-shirt was red and in big bold letters it said IMPROVE YOUR IMAGE. BE SEEN WITH ME. Somehow, I convinced Christy that the shirt should be mine. It was probably less me convincing her and more her just being nice. But man, I loved that T-shirt. It definitely became a staple of my early college wardrobe.

But now, on to the point. It was waaaaaay back in the year 2000. I had just started my freshman year at MU. I was living the good life, on the Honors floor of my dorm. I know, nerdy, right? But it was a co-ed dorm, so that should give me a couple of cool points. I had signed up for a class called The Warm Little Pond. I cannot even begin to describe it to you, but it was in that class that I learned the term “limnology.” Oh, and I met JiaoJiao (who, by the way, is awesome).

Jiao happened to live just down the hall from me, and she remembered seeing me in the dorm because I was wearing my supercool red T-shirt and people take notice of supercool T-shirts. So anyway, on the first (or maybe the second or third, who can remember after all these years?) day of The Warm Little Pond, she came over to me and asked if I lived in Hatch (the dorm) because she remembered my shirt and liked it. So we became friends. She was my first college friend (awwwwww) and we became tight. Like, we used to do the electric slide in the hall of the dorm, and we’d army crawl down the hall just because it made us laugh. Also, she liked Britney Spears and wasn’t ashamed to admit it, so I finally had someone to listen to “Born to Make You Happy” with.

Fast forward several months. Second semester. Jiao was taking anthropology. One of her classmates happened to be Andrew (unrelated fact: Andrew describes that anthropology professor as being just like the gopher “or whatever burrowing animal” from Winnie the Pooh). So Jiao and Andrew are taking this class together, and because they both lived on 6^th floor Hatch, they chatted and whatnot. And Jiao learned that Andrew played guitar. And Jiao wanted to learn to play the guitar. More specifically, she wanted to learn to play one song (perhaps a Michelle Branch song? again, I can’t remember, what with the passing of time and me being so old). So Jiao asked Andrew to give her lessons in exchange for a 3 Musketeers bar.

And the lessons commenced. When Jiao learned the song, she was so excited. She came to my room and asked me to come to Andrew’s room to hear her play. I was all, who’s Andrew? She’s like, a guy in my class who lives down the hall, haven’t you met him? Nope, I haven’t met him, but I’ll come hear you play.

So I went to Andrew’s room. And apparently JiaoJiao had a guitar there, and played a song or something. All I remember is the hot guy with the great smile and green eyes who had taught her how to play. I was enamored with him. What girl could resist a really, really cute guy that plays the freaking guitar? Not this girl. I decided right then and there, while Jiao picked out those chords, that I was going to get to know this guy.

I stuck around after Jiao’s one-song set to chat. We talked about music and such, and I flipped through his cds. And he had not one, not two, but three Muppets cds. And that was when I knew. I knew he would be a good fit for me. (He didn’t come to the same realization until a couple of years later, but my tenacity won out. I knew a good thing when I saw it.)

Incidentally, though I didn’t remember seeing him, Andrew remembered seeing me at our floor meetings earlier in the year. Why did I stand out to him? Because I was wearing that T-shirt (and because I’m just so darn good looking).

Now, eight years later, I no longer have that shirt. Also, it turns out that Andrew’s eyes are actually more hazel than green. Go figure.