I nearly posted this story in the comments here but realized at the last moment that it had nothing to do with the internet, besides the fact that I shall now tell said story on the internet, and refrained because we don’t want to look like a corny old guy on someone else’s weblog do we.
I was visiting a friend back in the days when nearly everything happened exclusively in real life. I was visiting a friend, in fact staying at his house for an extended period. I won’t say that he left me to my own devices a great deal, but I did spend a fair amount of time watching his pet squirrel run in the wheel mounted in its cage. It was a rather small cage, and being a squirrel the animal had lots of energy, and spent a lot of time running in its wheel, and I spent a lot of time watching it – being a lazy human I had less energy, at least relatively so; or perhaps merely more indolence.
One day my squirrel-watching was interrupted by a blonde woman who, well, not “burst,” and not “barged” … who “entered the room with a certain dramatic flair” and announced to everyone there (at this point I had reached a stage where I watched the squirrel closely even when other, potential conversation-partner types were in the room) and announced, “Boy do I ever hate American men.”
I sort of looked up, then went back to my squirrel-watching, thinking, “it’s you and me, little buddy.”
I also thought, “wonder if all Austrian women are like this.” (I should interject at this point that this took place in Austria, you see, a stone’s throw from where we now live. Well, a bit further. How far is a stone’s throw… fifty meters would be a good toss, wouldn’t it? Depending on stone and wind conditions? More like thirty stone’s throws from where we now live, but by car it takes just a couple minutes, it’s very near. But it was a long, roundabout story between that meeting and moving into the house where we now live.)
And that’s how we met.
The squirrel’s cage squeaked, faintly but constantly.