Mrs. ItchyFeet Way back in 2002, when landlines were the norm, I lived in Colorado with my future sister-in-law. She was going to collage and I was working as a phlebotomist (not a lobotomist as my mom used to think!) and about to start Medical Technology classes.
Mr. ItchyFeet would call that landline to chat with his sister while he worked as a delivery driver in Seattle, and, because his sister was hardly home, I would inevitably be the one he talked to. We would talk for hours and hours about all kinds of things. We both were dating some ridiculous characters and just having a great time being young.
I remember the first phone call from Mr. ItchyFeet. I went to “bed” early due to a 4am shift the next day and the phone woke me up. I was pretty poor so I slept on a pad on the floor in the corner of the room on the second floor. I also had all the curtains drawn to keep out the daylight. When he called, the first thing he said was, “I’m looking in your window right now…” in a creeper kind of sultry voice. He should have been a phone-sex worker… for weird creepy people.
I knew he was lying, but I was willing to play along. I said something like, “Sweet. How’s it going?” He pretended to be creepy for a bit longer until he suddenly realized that he was not talking to his sister, who he was trying to freak out. He exclaimed apologies and introduced himself. We talked for a bit. I let him know that his sister wasn’t home and then he let me get back to sleep.
Call me anytime
He started calling regularly, and we talked more and more. For anyone who has met my husband, he can talk… like for hours and hours. He’s amazing! This lasted for about a year until he finally visited with his parents to help his sister move to Seattle. We finally met. Instantly his mom took me aside and warned me that her son was “only after one thing”. I let her know that I, too, was only after one thing. No worries.
However, I had just flown back from North Carolina with an unhealthy dose of the flu and bit of pink-eye and I was crazy sick and gross. We made out anyway. I think his whole family ended up getting sick and I felt really bad. Masks weren’t really a thing back then.
Should we date before moving in together?
Back in Seattle, Mr. ItchyFeet still called that old landline, even though his sister no longer lived with me, and eventually asked me to move in with him while he went to college. I was just about to graduate as a Med Tech and there weren’t any job openings in Colorado Springs, so I said yes.
At first it was going to be me, him, and his sister all as roommates in a three-bedroom. While on the road-trip from Colorado to Washington, he realized living with his sister was not going to happen. He revised the offer to be just me and him in a two-bedroom.
Housing was (and still is) expensive in Seattle, so the bedroom count dropped again and we would just have to share a bed, “just until the lease is up”. Why date when you can move in together? We figured we could make it work.
I called around Seattle, found a job at Northwest Hospital, and moved up the day of graduation with everything I owned stuffed in my ‘95 Toyota Corolla. We moved in together and started dating on the same day! We married exactly one year later, August 13th, 2004. Friday the 13th. Crazy, but it seems to have worked out.
