Believe me, I wasn't looking for love. But one day it just happened. Just like that. I couldn't have avoided it anymore than I could have avoided puberty, taxes or Survivor.
I was living in Glasgow, Scotland at the time. It was a soggy day when I stepped into the Safeway and spotted the most perfect creature I had ever seen sitting by the door. I stared until it was way past polite. Then, I gave myself a mental kick in the backside, wrestled a buggy from out of the cart cocoon and shuffled into the store.
I meandered past aisles of cookies, prawn flavored anythings (that's shrimp flavored to us non-Brits) and sticky buns, but my mind was definitely not on food. All I kept thinking about was him - Mr. Wonderful!
"You can't have him so just forget it," I said myself.
A couple with matching Doc Martens and more pierced flesh than the Roman Coliseum eyed me suspiciously.
I ducked my head and skitted off to the cash with my green tomato, frozen dinner, and golf ball-sized lettuce. I strained to see over the cashier's spikey hair. My heart skipped a beat - maybe even two. Mr. Wonderful was still sitting by the entrance.
He really was quite a charmer. When people stopped to say hi, he greeted them like they were the best thing to happen to him since Christmas. He wasn't attractive in a typical sort of way but he had great big brown eyes and I could tell even from where I stood, he was intelligent.
"A girl could fall asleep with eyes like that watching over her," I thought dreamily as I handed over my entire week's salary to the clerk.
I grabbed my grocery bag and took a big breath. This was my chance. I was going to introduce myself.
I took a step toward the door, my heart beating like a teenager hiding in a closet on an N'Sync tour bus, and another shopper jetted out from the next cash, cutting me off.
"Hey," I said. But it was too late. Mr. Wonderful was already gone by the time I reached the door. There was nothing I could do but drag my miserable self home.
Two days later, a miracle happened. I was on my way to work when I spotted Mr. Wonderful at the corner of my street. I reached the intersection faster than is humanly possible and then smiled nonchalantly.
He was shorter and rounder than I remembered. Up close, his face was more wrinkled than my grandmother's knees. He had floppy bat-like ears. His nose was just a stub of a thing. He reminded me of Yoda and I thought,
"Tubby he is."
His bulbous eyes peered out from under his wrinkled brow. One eye seemed to be on me, the other on a bird across the street. Feeling like I had three new hearts inside my tight chest, I squeaked, "Hi." He bounded over like he had known me forever. My anxiety melted away like chocolate on a hot dashboard.
We had a great, if brief, visit. I couldn't have been happier. Well, okay, I could have been a little happier. He coughed and wheezed more than my Uncle Stu with his two-pack a day, fifty-two year habit.
I left my new friend that day certain the next time I saw him, he would be in intensive care or at the very least propped up on the couch watching "Oprah".
But I was wrong. Over the next few weeks, I saw him regularly and each time I did, his health was the same. His breathing was laboured. He coughed, sputtered and snorted without warning. Finally, I had to ask:
"What's wrong?"
"It's just the way he is," his best buddy said.
It was around that time that I started talking about him to my family and friends.
"He's got the cutest snort."
"What's his name?," my niece asked.
"Augustus."
"Ooh, that is much more dignified than Fido or Spot. I like him already."
Over the winter, Augustus and I became friends. And more than that, a wish had ignited inside of me: I wanted an Augustus of my own. I wanted a pug!
Well, six years years and much longing later, my wish finally came true. Pearl is her name. And if I'm ever looking for love these days (which happens to be just about all the time), I don't have to look any farther than by my side.