Second Anniversary
Dear Harper,
The story of how I met your mother will have to wait for another time, but the short version is that one of us was in a very bad mood and not very pleasant at all. The story of how I discovered she was the girl for me is much better, and I’m glad you’re around for our second anniversary to hear about it.
The first thing you need to know is that your mom and I have some very good friends in common, even if we didn’t know each other for a long time. One of our good friends decided to get married, and she asked both of us to be in her wedding.
Like most grand productions, this wedding involved a lot of standing around and waiting to be told what to do. Much of the standing around took place in the courtyard of an inn that can only be described as adorable, and your mother’s own adorableness really enhanced the whole effect.
Unfortunately, the adorable inn suffered from an infestation, a plague really, of mosquitoes. You’re young, so you may not have encountered a true mosquito plague, and you may think I’m exaggerating when I say that the mosquitoes were so large and so plentiful that many of us suffered from acute dizziness and exhaustion brought on by blood loss. I am not. There was a real danger that the wedding guests would all perish from exsanguination* had your mother not saved the day.
By the morning of the wedding, I had developed a passing interest in your mom, but I was not about to make a commitment to just anyone. Sure, she was a beautiful blonde and a doctor, but I was a happy bachelor. You don’t throw that away for just anyone.
So, it was purely for the sake of conversation that I said to one of the other members of the wedding- “That Belinda sure is interesting.”
“She is,” he said, “did you know she solved the mosquito problem at the inn?”
“Really?” I feigned interest for the sake of politeness.
“Yes! She found they were breeding in an old birdbath.”
“Is that so?”
“But the best part is that someone came out to pour bleach in the water, and she stopped them.”
“Why?”
“She said it wouldn’t do any good at that larval stage, and that they’d have to change the water.”
And that’s the moment I knew your mom was the only woman for me.
Maybe it seems silly to fall in love over something like that, but I promise you it isn’t. A smart person that knows things, and uses that knowledge to solve problems that aren’t theirs, is a truly rare thing. That’s exactly what your mother is, a smart (and beautiful) problem solver. I should know, she’s certainly solved all of mine.
Thank goodness for those mosquitoes.
Love,
Your Dad
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*You’re fifteen months old, so you should know by now that I worry about these things.
