Five Years in Five Days – How We Met

This Friday, Mrs. Bootleg and I celebrate five years of wedded bliss co-habitation. In the interest of full disclosure, I had "2 ½ years" in the pool my mother started at the rehearsal dinner. Unfortunately, every square other than that and "forever" was taken, so the odds – admittedly – were never in my favor.

Fortunately, I found the only Black woman on earth who tolerates the only Black man on earth who watches baseball, drinks beer and blogs. Ahead of the African-American cool curve, I am not, but that was also the case back in a little year I call 1995.

Kordell "Slash" Stewart was changing the way the NFL viewed Black quarterbacks – by playing every position except quarterback!

The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers parlayed a few months of popularity in 1993 into their own feature-length movie! (Still not sure why this formula didn't work for "Whoomp, There It Is!" The Movie)

And, most importantly, Aaron discovered the internet.

Keep in mind, this was before everyone in America owned two computers. My boy, Thai, had introduced me to this wonderful time waster just before I moved to San Diego in August of '95 and I was blown away by a virtual world where backstage pro wrestling poop was now part of the public domain. To say nothing of how the 'net nearly destroyed Sandra Bullock's life in the major motion picture of the same name.

It was clearly informative and powerful!

During an unusual bout of sobriety in November of that year, I found myself inside the lone computer lab in San Diego State University. And, never let it be said that state-run colleges are behind the curve, as there were nearly 100 computers for the 32,000 student body. Nearly 100!

I had this old, beat-up Buffalo Bisons minor league ballcap that I wore backwards (which was the style at the time) and some XXL baggy denim shorts. Believe it or not, the story behind the former is actually more embarrassing than the wearing of the latter, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyways, it was Tuesday, November 7th and – wait for it – across a crowded computer lab, our eyes met. She was actually a statuesque 5'11" white girl with long brown hair, but sitting next to her, sharing the same computer, was the 4'8" future Mrs. Bootleg.

I shared an awkward hallway conversation with this midget, who barely reached my sternum. We exchanged names (she "helpfully" explained that hers was like a popular French dish made with eggs, milk and cheese, as if I'd never known anyone named "future Mrs. Bootleg" before), e-mail addresses (how '90s!) and home phone numbers (cell phones would not be invented until 2004 or 2005).

Our first date couldn't have been more ghetto, as we met at Wings N Things, about 10 minutes from the campus…and, on the corner of "Crack" and "Gang". We went dutch on a pair of five wing combo meals and called each other the second we both got home.

Just precious.

Next: All the times we nearly broke up!