(re-run)
Suzanne needed a date for her Alpha Delta Phi sorority party that was being held off campus at one of the sisters’ parents’ house. She invited a guy from her old high school, Mark. When they got there, Mark knew the physician dad, because they’d been on ski patrol together one winter in Tahoe.
Mark loved to dance. The band was playing and soon he had a line of girls queued up to dance with him. So much for Suzanne’s date. She barely saw him the rest of the party.
Fast forward thirty-five years. Mark was with his son at a Cal game at Stanford. Suzanne was there, looking the same as ever. Mark put on his detective hat and went over to say hi. He noticed her left hand. No ring.
“Hi,” he said to Suzanne, who didn’t recognize him. “It’s Mark Aiken. So you never married?”
Suzanne figured out he was from high school or college or something. She had blocked out their horrible sorority party date where he had ignored her. She’d been with her guy for 23 long, going-nowhere years, living with a married man as the other woman.
“So what do you like to do now?” Mark asked.
“I like to collect wine, travel, and garden,” Suzanne said.
“My partner likes to garden,” Mark said, referring to his wife.
“Oh,” Suzanne said, thinking that Mark must be gay.
How wonderful that you are raising a child in a gay partnership, she thought.
Two more years went by. By then, Mark had gotten divorced and had tried online dating seven disastrous times. Finally he looked up Suzanne’s number and called her up. They made a date to go dancing, another passion they both shared. Six months later, they were married.
Mark and Suzanne love to take cruises to exotic places. Even if they spend the day at a tiny village in Italy, they can always find dancing on the ship on a Tuesday night!
CoulddaWoulddaDidda
They’ve been married for fifteen years and take six cruises a year. That’s seventy-eight so far because the pandemic years meant no cruises.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 