[speaker001:] Matthew Purdie. I've been asked to recount the story of how I first came to be going out with my present girlfriend, who, more than likely, I will end up marrying in year and a half or so. Well the story goes something like this: Late November, early December, don't remember which, 1990, 1990 I had a dream. I was marrying this one particular individual woman. And as I drove to school the next day with my best friend, a guy I've known longest in the world, Jeffrey Mossier, we discussed this dream I had. And, we discussed it, and he said, "Wow!" And I said, "Jeffrey, I'm probably going to marry this girl." And, well, that was like nine years ago. [Clears throat] So, you know, we got to know each other a little better; we'd gone to school together since the seventh grade. And we started doing that flirting thing, you know, acting like boyfriend and girlfriend, flirting, doing this, that, and the other, but nothing officially ever happened. So one day, a band fruit day, a very nasty day, kinda funny, I asked her out to a movie. It caught her a little bit off guard and she said, "Yes." And we went and saw one of the poorest movies I've ever seen in my life, Three Men and a Little Lady. It's the sequel to Three Men and a Baby.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] Anyway, we went and saw that movie; both of us hated, hated it and I think we may have actually hold, held hands together in the last half of the movie. Didn't kiss. Then we went to Baskin-Robbins and she got some Chocolate Gold Caramel Ribbon ice cream and I got Mint Chocolate Chip, and we ate and we made a mess and I drove her home. And that was our first date and how we met.
[speaker002:] So what happened after that?
[speaker001:] Oh, after that? All kinds of things.
[speaker002:] Because obviously you're still dating her and it's been five years.
[speaker001:] We went to the prom together, junior year. That was exciting. She was wearing this big, huge, green Cinderella dress that she won't allow me to mention any longer because she hates it now. And then, I ended up giving her my high school class ring, cheesy! And on November the first, this is a good story, playing Ultimate Frisbee with my buddies on Halloween Day, and I dove to knock the Frisbee out of somebody's hand. I dove in front of them, and as I dove in front him, he grabbed the back of my shirt, sent all my weight forward, and I ended up landing on my thumb and my index finger of my left hand, right hand, and broke a couple of balls in my wrist. Had to wear a cast for five or six weeks and then another little cast for five or six weeks after that. Stinky hand because I couldn't wash it. Anyway, the night afterwards, November the first, we had gone to a football game in Greensboro, or Gastonia, Ashbrook. And, after the game was over, we got back to school and we talked out in the parking lot for what seems to be forever. And I asked her if she wanted to wear it since I couldn't, because it would, you know, the hand had the cast on it. Anyway, she said, "Yeah, sure," and we giggled and laughed and then we went our separate ways and went home. So all senior year, we went out about every Friday, movies, hanging out with friends, doing whatever. And we had a very, very, we went to the prom together. Then, sometime in June or July, after we graduated, we had a really long talk about what we were going to do because we were going to different colleges.
[speaker002:] What schools were you going to?
[speaker001:] I went to NC State University in Raleigh, NC, she went to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. And it's only an hour, hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes drive, depending on the traffic, depending on how fast you fly above the road. But we had a talk about whether or not we wanted to continue dating or whether we wanted to break it off or whether we wanted to continue dating but allow the other to date other people while we were in college. And well, the consensus was, we should probably keep in touch but that we should give each free reign to, to date other people. Well, low and behold, that never happened for either one of us. And we made it, all through six years of college, together, discussing quite often whether or not we were going to end up marrying each other. And while, she ended up taking a job in Atlanta, which was a little bit further from Charlotte than Winston-Salem was, and she wanted me to move down there. And well I hate the town. The town's too big for its own good. But I did try to get a job down there, teaching. Didn't make her happy at all. But well, we've gone through, some little fights here and there about whether or not I wanted to be down in Atlanta and whether I really wanted to be with her, and whether she really wanted to be with me, if I didn't really want to follow her at all, all the way down there. She thought that. But anyway, she, is probably going to move back here and we will probably get married, and have kids, and live the happily ever after Cinderella little story because I am Prince Charming and she is, the Princess. What other story shall I tell?
[speaker002:] If that's all you want to say, that's fine.