Whirlwind

It was, without question, the best month of my life. Pound for pound, day for day, no other month in my life can measure up. And it started with a walk for charity that was canceled due to tornadoes.


x x x


I was sitting in Adrian's Cafe, eating lunch and talking to Stacie, a.k.a. Adrian's Girl. The weather was pretty ominous: dark clouds, high winds and rain. I was telling her that I was heading up our office's participation in that evening's Light the Night Walk, a benefit for leukemia and lymphoma research. And I wasn't particularly thrilled with the drippy forecast for the proceedings. She seemed marginally interested in what I was talking about, so I invited her to come join in on the fun.

"Hmm...maybe I will," she said. "But wouldn't it be weird if I showed up since no one knows who I am?"

"Yeah, it would be weird," I said, "But you can hold my umbrella so that I can properly attend to my clipboard. You can be my assistant," I said with a smirk. "Really, though, there will be other folks there that nobody knows. Of course, with the weather shaping up the way it is, this might not be an ideal night to be walking around outside."

She contemplated the idea for a while. Finally, she said, "Okay, I'll go. Give me your number and I'll text you if I decide not to."

I complied and asked for her number in return, so that I would know who was texting me. She gave me her number and I secretly celebrated the first telephone number I had ever successfully acquired from a girl. I then left and returned to work, thrilled that I had gotten her number and a shaky commitment to do something with me outside of Adrian's Cafe.

Once I got back to the office, the weather declined in a hurry. Before long, a Tornado Watch had been issued. About this time, I received a text from Stacie saying that she would probably not be up for those kinds of conditions. I agreed and after a Tornado Warning was issued, I told her that she should absolutely not risk her life to come walk around a business park. We continued to text each other the rest of the evening and from that point on, there was rarely a day that went by when we didn't text, call or see each other for the next month.

(To Be Continued...)