Joe was having a moment of clarity this afternoon, so I asked him if he would tell me how he and Dot first met.  Dot was sitting next to him on the couch.

Joe:  “We went to school together, didn’t we?”

Dot:  “No, we met at a dance.”

Joe:  “At the school?”

Dot:  “Well yeah, but at my school.  The boys from your school came to our dance.  I went to an all girl’s school.”

Joe laughed:  “Oh yeah, now I remember.  There were so many girls there!”

Dot:  “And out of all of those girls, you decided to ask me to dance.”

Joe:  “Well, either that or you’re the only girl who said ‘yes’.”

Dot:  “No, no.  You only asked me.  I know cuz I was watching.”

Joe:  “You were watching me?  What were you watching me for?”

Dot:  “Because I thought you were kinda cute…”

Joe burst out laughing.

Me:  “I think you just made Joe a little shy.”

Joe:  “Not me!  I’m not shy.”

Dot:  “Oh and tell Whitney about when we had our first date.”

Joe:  “Which one?”

Dot:  “There’s only one, FIRST date, Joe.”

Joe:  “Oh yeah, I guess you’re right.  I must’ve lost count.”

Dot:  “Well my sister brought her date along so that we could have a double date, because that’s the only way that my parents would let us go out with boys.  My sister and her date drove behind us, and Joe let me drive his car…”

Joe:  “I remember that!  That was a bad idea letting you drive, Dot.”

Dot:  “It wasn’t my fault that the gas pedal got stuck!”

Me:  “Wait…What happened?”

Dot:  “Well I was driving pretty fast, because I must’ve been trying to show off or something, and the next thing I knew, the gas pedal was stuck!  And I couldn’t get the car to stop!”

Joe laughed:  “Yup, I remember that.”

Me:  “So what did you do?”

Dot:  “Well, my sister and her date were driving behind us, and they said that they could see sparks coming out from under the car and everything!  I didn’t know what to do.  But lucky for me, Joe was there.”  She reached over and patted his leg then.

Joe:  “Yeah, lucky for you.  Not so lucky for me!  You darn near crashed my car!”

Dot:  “We didn’t crash.  You told me to turn the engine off and just focus on keeping the car on the road.  Eventually the car slowed down.  And do you remember the best part of the story, Joe?”

Joe looked confused:  “Better than you almost wrecking my car…?”

Dot:  “Do you remember where the car finally came to a stop?”

Joe:  “On the side of the road somewhere I guess…”

Dot:  “It stopped RIGHT in front of Mildred Johnson’s house.”

Joe:  “Who’s Mildred Johnson?”

Dot:  “Your ex-girlfriend.”

Joe laughed:  “Oh yeah…I thought that name sounded familiar.”

Dot:  “You’re not fooling me.  I know that you remember who she is.”

Joe looked all starry-eyed:  “Yeah, I remember Mildred…”

Dot cracked up:  “Yeah, I just bet you do.”

Joe:  “But I remember you best of all, Dot.”

Dot:  “Yeah, you’d better say that.”

Joe looked at me and winked.