Redneck Courtin' Rituals

I met my husband at the pool of my apartment complex after
the owner put in a new building. I had lived there for a year
already, and then some "fresh blood" (as my friend called them)
moved in. For a while, there were 4 of us that hung out.

The day the "dating" started was kind of weird. Future Hubby
walked over to my apartment and asked if I'd like to go for a
ride. I said "OK." I thought the other guy and girl might be
going too. But when I went to the car, it was just me. That
was fine. I didn't think anything of it.

Future Hubby's car was kind of falling apart. The headliner
sagged down on my head. He said, "I need to get some glue
and stick that back up." He drove me way down in the middle
of nowhere to see his parents' graves. That was kind of odd.
It was a church cemetery. There were cows in the road, and
we had to wait for them to move. There were no people, and
we didn't pass many cars, either.

We had left around 10:00 a.m., and it was now getting to be
2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. We had not stopped anywhere
other than the cemetery. No bathroom breaks, no gas, no
getting something to eat or drink. I got to thinking..."Nobody
knows where I am. I don't know where I am. He could just
kill me and throw out the body and who knows how long it
would take for someone to find me."

FH kept driving and talking. I could not tell if we were headed
back, or deeper into nowhere. Finally, I said, "I need to be
getting back. Do you think we could stop for a soda or
something?" He said, "Sure," and stopped at a gas station
and got me a soda. Then we went home.

Now it's not that he was cheap. I guess it just never entered his
mind that I would want to do anything but ride for hours and
listen to him talk. It's not that he was socially backward--he had
been married and had two kids, so he had been able to capture
a woman besides me. I didn't even think of this as a date. He
started coming over to visit. I went to the park to walk every night,
and he started coming with me. Then my friend said, "Why didn't
you tell me you were dating?" I said, "I didn't know I was."
Apparently FH had told his guy friend he was dating me. This
probably just meant "hands off" to him, since I went walking on
the State Park Bike Trail with the buddy, because he could walk
farther than FH. When a hometown guy I knew from college
came to visit, there would be FH ringing my doorbell and trying
to include himself in what we were doing.

I invited FH over for supper one night. I cooked 4 pork chops
and some green beans and Stove Top Stuffing. (OK, so we've
established that I'm no cook.) The point is that I ate a pork chop,
and FH ate a pork chop. Then he had another pork chop. That's
fine. But then he got up, tore off a piece of foil, grabbed the last
pork chop, and said, "I'll take this to work for my lunch tomorrow."
That was not OK! Hey! I had lunch needs too. Who did he think
he was, helping himself to my leftovers!

After about 4 months, he asked me to marry him. I had to think
that over for a while. I bought a house. He worked on it for me.
We bought 10 acres together. He built a barn on it. His kids
liked me better that they liked him. He taught me how to shoot
his guns. About a year after he asked, we got married.

In all that time, we only went on one "real" date. That was to
St. Louis to the Funny Bone with a couple that I worked with.
No movies, no dinners, no dancing, no bars, no tractor pulls.
Nothing other than hanging out at my place, his place, or his
friends' houses.

Now Hubby wants to go out and do things, but I don't. And
I especially do not want to go for a ride.