I’ve lived in the same town all my life, in the same house, which I inherited from my parents when they died when I was twenty-four. I always shop at the same grocery store — the same one my parents were bringing me to when I was knee-high to a bee. You could say I’m a creature of habit. I’ve worked in the same local government office ever since I got my degree, in the same department, gradually moving up the ranks over time.

The point is, I was friends with all the workers and all the managers in the store (and still am). So, seventeen years ago (I was twenty-six back then) when they got a new employee, of course, I noticed immediately.

“Vicki” was tall, brunette, and supremely voluptuous, and she had beautiful brown eyes. I instantly crushed on her, but I was too shy and tongue-tied to say anything. So, I asked the manager for a moment of his time, and after we went into his office, I suggested that he tell Vicki that one of the customers thought she was gorgeous but to not say it was me.

For the next several months, I quietly admired her from afar, but I couldn’t so much as make myself go down an aisle she was working in. That might mean I would have to speak to her, and I knew I’d turn into a mess.

One day, right as it was going to be my turn to check out, the cashier behind the register needed his break. And Vicki was the one who filled in for him. I’m sure my face turned red. I tried to speak, just to make the usual small talk, but my vocal cords seemed frozen in place. I turned into a catastrophic mess, as anticipated.

The next time I was there, as I was walking from the car to the store, Vicki was pushing carts. She ambushed me as I was about halfway across the parking lot.

Vicki: “When I first started, my manager said the oddest thing. One of the customers was crushing on me, but he didn’t say who. Is it you?”

I stared at the ground, wanting it to open and swallow me up, and managed to croak out:

Me: “Yes.”

Vicki and I have been married for ten years now. She’s even more voluptuously beautiful than she was then, and I’m still shy and tongue-tied around her.