Magically Pretty
Last year I went home for ‘spring break.’
My family lives in the Phoenix area, so baseball’s spring training was in full gear (I put swing originally, then decided to pre-emptively veto an unintentional pun).
*
My journey began at the San Jose airport.
While I was heading up to the security gate a VERY pretty girl was walking in front of me. How I do love a pretty girl. I noticed she had a name tag on her bag. Her name was … infatuation derailed … Kristie Crist.
Who names their child Kristie (Kristy?) Crist? Sure, Bradley Stanley is bad, but Kristie Crist? That almost makes Bradley Stanley normal.
*
I’m sitting on the plane and reading, waiting for everyone to board so we can take off. I’ve got the window seat because I always think, ‘this flight I’ll figure out a very comfortable way to lean my head against the wall, and I’ll sleep oh-so-nicely.’ That will never happen, but man I’ve got to try!
The lovely, the beautiful, the talented (it’s a talent to be so pretty) Kristie Crist sits beside me. Well, not RIGHT beside me. Right beside me is a friend of Kristie’s, who is also very good looking.
I wanted you to know I was sitting first because I would never sit next to such pretty people. Especially when I’d worked that day and then run to get to the airport without a chance to shower.
Them: pretty.
Me: pungent.
I hear them talking and it turns out that Miss Kristie Crist is Mrs. Crist. And she’s flying to Arizona to see her husband play in a spring training game!
I’m sitting next to a major league baseball player’s wife!!
This is doubly bad. Not only is she pretty, but she’s a sort of celebrity, and her husband plays pro ball. There are so many questions I want to ask. ‘Will you marry me, and then I can meet your husband at divorce court?’ Or, ‘will your husband play ball with me, while you stand around and look pretty?’
Eventually I couldn’t take it and I awkwardly looked up from my book and said something like, “excuse me … your husband plays major league baseball?”
Yes, she said smiling.
It turns out her husband, Crist, is a pitcher for the Royals (my favorite team from growing up!).
HOW AWESOME!
At that point I was too overwhelemed to say anything worthwhile. That doesn’t mean I didn’t stop talking, but thankfully my memory blocked all that out.
*
I go back to my reading, and later I switch off to a notebook to do some writing. At the time I was very secretive about my writing. This may be awkward (that’s my calling card), but the vast majority of friends didn’t know I wrote til I started this blog. Friends from high school knew I wrote for a paper, and friends in middle school knew I wrote odd little stories … but I didn’t keep in touch very well. Now I’m friends with these people on Facebook, and I trumpet my site on there all the time.
Anyhow.
Secretive. I was/am secretive. I’m very afraid someone will steal my stories or ideas and go off and live my dream.
But what happens if someone very pretty asks me what I’m writing?
Kristie leaned over and tapped my arm. I removed my headphones.
“Are you a writer?”
Ohhhh Kristie. Dear, dear Kristie. You have just done yourself in.
The next x minutes were filled with me uncontrollably babbling the whole idea behind the book I was writing. Complete with unecessary arm gestures and a complete disregard for my audience’s attention span. (‘Should I keep talking?’ – that was not a question that entered my mind.)
If I see a book published by Kristie Crist, and the book is MY book, I would probably get incredibly angry, and then be touched that she liked my idea. And then I would picture going to a book signing where I win a law suit against her, get a book publishing deal, and I marry her. It would be a hectic day.
*
We (Kristie, her friend and I are all old hat, you know) talked for a bit. Kristie and her friend worked incredibly close to where I lived, so I always hoped to run into them.
Kristie’s friend was having relationship troubles, and they asked my advice. I’m sure I gave some answer where I tried to be appropriately funny, wise and clever – but at point I was distracted by my wishing I’d showered before I’d gone to the airport. Half of my thoughts were focused on, ‘don’t lift up your arms – bottle the stink up!’
Kristie semi flirted with me in place of her friend. I think Kristie didn’t like her friend’s boyfriend, and was suggesting that she should drop him and find a new fella. I happened to be the closest thing around.
I went so far as to write my number down on a corner of a piece of paper. I even tore this corner out of the page. But then I used it as a bookmark, as a reminder to myself of that one time I almost married a baseball player’s wife (my imagination is my best friend).
*
Kristie Crist, or Mr. Crist, if you’re as vain as I am and you randomly google yourself – hello! How are you! Your husband should throw a perfect game, then talk about my blog. Get back to me on this.
DumbFunnery 