Amanda graduated from Campbell University then moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where she stayed with her aunt, Joanne Faucher while she looked for a job. Amanda landed a job that didn’t turn out to be what she thought it was. The day she went in for her first interview she noticed me, the assistant manager at TWG Marketing (shared some office space with a cousin company) sitting behind the desk, and thought I was cute.
The weekend after her interview was Amanda’s family’s annual Labor Day beach trip, and her mom asked about the guys at the place where she interviewed. Amanda mentioned me and my blue eyes.
At some point I was outside with a bunch of Commies (as we people in Amanda’s division, Communication, were called) and we were all talking about future plans. I said something about getting married then having kids at 28. Amanda, who didn’t even know my name yet, was doing some math in her head. She thought that would give us a year to date and a year to plan the wedding. What she didn’t know was that I was actually younger than she thought, so we had a little more time to do all of that.
Eventually I found out that Amanda thought I was cute. Her boss, Kennon, arranged for me and her to meet up in the merch room where I very smoothly asked if she wanted to do something that night. (It really wasn’t all that smooth.) As Amanda puts it, I said something to the effect of, “So, uh… like, you wanna… uh, go out tonight?”
That may be pretty accurate, although really, I was generally much smoother than that back then.
Our first date was September 20, 2002, and it was not a good first date in the traditional sense. First off, my division worked later than hers, and I got back later than usual that night. She left her number on a piece of paper under the office door, but I didn’t see it. I had to call around to find her number. I eventually got it and met her up at a classy bar in North Raleigh. Stool Pigeons maybe? No, I think that’s downtown. Anyway, she was there along with Pamela Penny and another Commie. We hung out there for a bit then we were driving somewhere- I can’t remember exactly where, when I got a call from Andra, my little sister.
Andra told me that her boyfriend, Kaylon Honeycutt, who also worked for me, needed a ride from The Carolina Ale House, which is where a lot of us would hang out after work. I seethed into the phone something like “Andra, I’m not very happy about this, but I’m not going to go into it right now.”
When we got there I had a hard time pulling Kaylon away from playing pool, which didn’t help matters. We got back to the apartment I was staying in with Todd Dorrell and watched some videos. Kaylon ran across the street to pick us all up some McDonalds, and I remember that we ordered our burgers the same way- plain with cheese and ketchup.
First we watched Me, Myself and Irene then we watched Long Kiss Goodnight, which we ended up falling asleep on the couch during.
The next day, a Saturday, was always an option (but encouraged) work day for me. Sometimes Commies would go out with us to make a little extra money as well, and Amanda did that for the first and only time. Afterwards we went out to eat at Bahama Breeze with Mitch Kouba and his girlfriend.
