The Phone Call

When we last left off in the story of how Dad and Mom met, Dad had just about run over Mom in the parking lot of Kinko's after she got her resume typset.

So, with Dad having failed to make a noticeable impression on Mom - and having been told by his guardian angel that she was his future wife - it was time for Dad to act again.

Following his daily bike ride, Dad returned to Kinko's to catch up on some work (sounds familiar, doesn't it?). To put things in perspective, in 1991, it was all about the bike for Dad. He had his own team, Kinko's Copies, and part of its sponsor relations was putting on bike safety demonstrations at local schools.

So when he pulled Mom's phone number off her resume to give her a call, that was the excuse he used for the call.

The conversation went something like this:

Dad: "Hello, Danielle."

Mom: "Yes"

Dad: "This is Sean from Kinko's. You were in here to pick up your resume today."

Mom: "Yes"

Dad: "I have a bike racing team that does bike safety seminars in schools and I was wondering if you know who I could contact at Grace Abbott (the school where Mom was teaching at the time) to put one on."

As Mom relates now, her reply was "Duh. Call the principal." But Dad remembers her kindly telling him the name of the prinicipal, which led to a conversation about the her teaching, her work as the "Kool-Aid Man" and other things related to her.

What should have been a two-minute conversation turned into two hours on the phone and a "date" at the ice cream shop (TCBY) across the street from Kinko's. Mark it down as one of the few times (if not the only time Dad took an afternoon off from training.

So there you have it. The story of how Mom and Dad met. There was no hitting Dad with the car (like in "Back to the Future") or a magical night at the prom. But the chance meeting that brought them together paved the way for the merging of two wonderful families and five beautiful girls.

It's 40 years and counting for Grandma & Grandpa YD.