Strike, You're Out

With my second wedding anniversary approaching my mind is flooded with memories each day. Since it's only been two years ago most of my memories of trucker and I dating and the wedding itself are still very fresh in my mind. One of those memories that keeps popping up is one of our first "out of town" trip together. This trip occurred as trucker's way of apologizing to me for a vast wrong he had committed. You see not long after trucker and I started dating I explained to him quite nicely I must add, about how I approached any new relationship after my third divorce. I had made a set of rules and strictly adhered to that set. One of the main rules was that anyone I chose to date had a "three strike, you're out" rule. If they had done something I deemed a strike and did this three times they were quite simply out of my life. No if's, and's or but's about it. Now I would give them the benefit of telling them of the wrong they committed and give them a chance to make it a clean slate again. They obtained strikes by: canceling a date without good reason at the last minute, blowing me off for something else that came up after committing to something we had planned, raising their voice to me or my child, getting drunk, or acting inappropriately in public. I didn't think this set of rules to difficult to follow either, after all to me it was respect. Trucker didn't seem to mind these rules either, but he did want to know exactly what "good reasons" were when canceling that little shithead. I explained to him that unless you were bleeding, had broken bones, car accident or things of this nature that it was unacceptable to cancel on me. Now you might think this is a harsh set of rules but I refused to put up with shit in my life anymore. I had put up with way to much shit in my previous life. Someday I will fill you in on it.

Ok, so now I have explained to you my rules of dating and why I felt they were important.
We had been dating about two months when trucker committed his crime. He canceled a very important date, one in which we had planned to go to my companies Christmas party. This had been planned for weeks in advance. At the time I worked as a paralegal for a private law practice and they had this big shindig every year. I had never been able to go before now due to previous engagements on my part and was really, really looking forward to this one. He called the day before the party and said he wouldn't be able to make it due to the fact that his ex wife had chosen that same weekend to go out of town and he had no one to watch his kids. He wasn't bleeding, he had no broken bones and had been in no car accident, so yes, he got a strike. He also knew how mad I was at him and that he received his first strike.

Now cut to the chase. A couple of weeks after this trucker called me one night and wanted to know if he could have his strike removed? He then went on to tell me he had bought us tickets to the Nascar races in Talladega, AL for the first weekend in October and would I like to go with him. Hell yes that removed his strike. I was giddy with excitement. I had only been to one race in person, and I was thrilled to be going out of town and spending four days with him. This was the first time I would be meeting his friends as well. We had the time of our lives those four days. It was perfect in every way. We drove down one night and it took all night, set up our tent, slept a few hours, souvenir shopped upon waking, and watched racing action all weekend. It was one long party weekend with other racing fans. A time I will never forget and neither will trucker. That was the weekend he said he "fell in love with me" but didn't have the nerve to tell me yet. Any woman that thought camping at a race track was fun was perfect in his book. Since that first "out of town trip" we have made it a tradition each year to go to nascar weekend there. We also went for a belated honeymoon that next October.

Had trucker never committed his first strike I may never have gone to that nascar race. So thanks trucker for coming close to striking out.