Shanny & CSP: Origins

11 years ago today CSP & I became inseparable. This is how it happened… I have been friends with my BIL, Marc, since 1992.  Our group of friends would go on a fun trip once a year or so.  Well in 1998 we chose to take a 7 day cruise to the Southeast Caribbean.  Marc, Jackie, Landon, Amy, Kevin, & I signed up to go.  I got a bonus at work and my tax return so I went ahead and paid for my portion of the trip.  (All these odd details become important later, I swear)  Marc & Jackie were dating when we booked the trip, but as the date of the cruise got closer they broke up.  Marc decided he wanted more of a buffer between him & Jackie so without telling the rest of us he asked his old college roommate Jon to go on the cruise.  Jon said yes and paid his portion of the trip.  Adding Jon to the mix made the prices of all the others cruises go down by $38.  And since I’d already paid, that meant Jon had to pay me $38.  I was so mad at Marc for inviting some random jackass on this cruise with us.  None of us knew him well, and none of us girls had even met him.  And Marc thought it would be a good idea to put us on a boat with him for a week?!?  The hell?!  I called Marc and was letting him know how annoyed I was with him and he told me to “Relax. You’ll meet Jon at Kevin’s birthday party Friday.”

I arrived at the party and asked right away where this Jon character was.  Marc said look for the tall guy in the baseball cap by the keg.  Yeah, I know, we threw classy parties back in the day.  I made my way through the house and out to the patio and the keg.  I saw this tall dude, walked up to him & tapped him on the shoulder.  He turned around.  Hmm, cute, I thought.

Are you Jon?

Yep.

The Jon that’s going on the cruise with us?

Yep.

You owe me $38.

Jon took a swig of his beer and peered down at me.  Then he put his finger on my chest and pushed me away.

Back off, woman.  He said this to me!  And he turned around and kept talking to the guys there.  Well!  I never!

And I was hooked.  We stayed up all night talking.  At 6:30 the next morning I left to go to work.  Before I left CSP asked for my number and a kiss.  Swoon.

So I went to work then to see a ballet with some other guy.  Hey, I couldn’t break our date on such short notice!  But the whole time I was with ballet guy I was thinking could I just get out of there and try and catch CSP at Marc’s again.

I finally shook off ballet guy and caught up with Amy & company.  We went to a party where I consumed some liquid courage in the form of a drink called Purple Passion.  Then we went to Marc’s.  Miracle of miracles- CSP was there!  And I had conveniently been over served too much Purple Passion so when it was time to part company CSP gave me a ride home.  And we stayed up all night talking again.

I knew I would marry him.  I found out that night that he’d been trying to meet me again.  We’d met one night a few months before.  I was dating the Far Side Kid (this dude, ugh. I swear dating him was my good deed of my LIFE).  A few of us, Far Side Kid not included, were hanging out over at Marc’s.  Well Marc & Jon were studying for some test for work.  They were in the management training program together.  The rest of us were reading tarot cards & doing palm readings & apparently being too distracting for Jon & Marc to get any real studying done.  Jon got up and left without ever saying a word to me.  But I guess I caught his eye because between that night and Kevin’s birthday party Kevin would call me and ask me to come over for odd reasons.  Found out later it’s because Jon was there wanting to hang out with me again.  Swoon!

In October 1998 we went on that cruise and had the best time.  By then CSP & I had been dating exclusively and were all in love.  Oh, forgot to mention, he was living with a girl when we met.  He moved out asap.

And, no, he never paid me my $38.