Mrs. Cornell Tells All

Mrs. Stallion’s sister, code name T, is compiling the stories of how all the in-laws met. I told this story in two controversial blog posts - one here and one here -  so I thought you might enjoy her side of the story. My editorial comments are in brackets.

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Okay - where to begin. Well, the first time Stallion and I met he proposed to me. Wisely, I turned him down.

I met Stallion a couple of weeks after starting school at USC in the fall of 1992. I had already heard a truckload about him, because my roommate J had a huge crush on him and that's all she could talk about. Now, my roommate was many things, including being really weird, so I didn't expect too much from this guy.

[Editorial note from Stallion: See? Her roommate dug me! Look how desirable I was! Actually, I don’t want to dis her roommate, as she was a nice enough girl, but the romance thing with her just wasn’t happening. It made things awkward when we started dating, because we’d end up smooching with J in the other room. Very tacky on our part.]

So a bunch of people from the single's ward were going to Bugs Bunny on Broadway at the Hollywood Bowl and invited me to come along and since I was new and had no friends, I went. Stallion was sitting by some freshman who apparently was also a theatre major and I guess they were having a contest of who could make the bigger fool out of themselves so they started propositioning all the women within shouting distance. First, asking for dates and then with marriage proposals. I got one of the proposals. He doesn't even remember asking me, so apparently I was not the only fish in the sea. All I could think of was that I REALLY didn't fit in because everybody else was laughing at Stallion and just thought he was the funniest thing alive and I thought he was just obnoxious, poorly dressed (he was wearing some multi-patterned plaid shirt over a rolling stones t-shirt), and way too skinny.

[Stallion editorial note: I don’t think I had a Rolling Stones T-shirt at the time. Might have been a Springsteen T-shirt, except I didn’t wear my old Springsteen T-shirts by then. I did, however, sport the open-button-down-shirt-over-t-shirt look, so I think her memory is reasonably accurate. And I was very, very skinny.]

We attended the same ward so our paths crossed every Sunday, but we didn't say much to each other. He did teach Gospel Doctrine and I was quite impressed there. I could tell he was quite a smarty pants and I started to appreciate his offbeat sense of humor. (I still don't think yelling marriage proposals is even a tad bit funny).

[Stallion editorial note: If they get laughs, they’re funny.]

At Christmas I went home and I remember talking to A about some of the people I had met at USC. Stallion was one of the people who came up and she asked why I wasn't dating him. It hadn't even crossed my mind until then, but I think that may have planted a seed.

[A is Mrs. Cornell’s militant leftist sister who I once took, without telling her in advance, to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Good times.]

So when I got back after Christmas break, I got an invitation to a wedding reception of a friend from BYU that was being held at UCLA. It was a ring ceremony as well, so I didn't want to sit there alone and I really wanted to go see my friend, so I started trying to figure out who to ask to go with me. My roommate was busy. I was a bit embarrassed to take some of my PT friends because then I would have to explain the whole "ring ceremony" thing (I know - lousy missionary). Anyways, my roommate suggested Stallion because he wouldn't take it as a come on, just a nice platonic night out. So I asked and he said he would and it just turned out really fun. I know we got lost and missed the whole ring ceremony. We only talked to my friend for a second, but we talked on her wedding video (which she showed me years later), and then I think we left and went home. I remember he opened my door for me, which I thought was very polite, and then he proceeded to crawl across my lap to his seat. Yeah, my hubby is nothing if not a gentleman. But we really hit it off and we talked for a long time before he dropped me off. His passion for politics was quite fun - I was a big Ross Perot supporter at that time so we really got into it.

[I know, I know. I married a Perot supporter. Scary. She’s repented since then.]

Anyways, he called me back a couple of days later and asked me out again. That time he took me to this great little hole in the wall restaurant and then out to the Santa Monica pier. It was such a great date. I thought he was so original. (Needless to say, I didn't know he took all his dates to the same places. The first 2 dates were great - and then it was nothing but dinner and a movie, but I was hooked by then).

[Yeah, I had three dates pretty well planned out through trial and much error. I didn’t have much occasion to proceed on to a fourth.]

We had a few rocky spots after that - like when he tried to kiss 3 women in the same day, but some how we got through those and got hitched. And 364 days out of the year I'm pretty dang happy about that.

[I only kissed two girls, although I was aiming for three. And I should be happy with the 364 day average.]