Funny Things Happen

Since I was very happily married for fifteen years to John Whitehouse, my first husband and my children’s father, I was anxious to marry again after he passed away to once again be happy. Soon my plans to catch a husband made D-Day look like children's play.

After staying home for a year like a good girl, the first person I dated was twenty years older than I was. He asked me to go a movie.

On the way to the movie, he asked if I had any insurance money to invest in his invention. It was shocking to me for a man to ask such a question. I replied, "Well, yes, I did have insurance money, but I spent it all. And it was so much fun doing it." He growled, but I thought it served him right for asking me about it. The truth is I saved the insurance money for my children's education, but I never told him.

The movie was The New Leaf with Walter Mathau. It was the first time I had gone to a movie in a year and the first time I had laughed in a year. The story was about how Walter spent all his money and so he is looking for a suitable woman to marry and live off her money. I laughed uncontrollably during the whole show because sitting right beside me was a man doing the same thing as Walter!

I called him the ‘watchband man’. He was very nice in many ways, but had an irritating habit of pushing his food around his plate all the time he was chewing, waiting for the next bite. He wore his watch on the upper part of his arm.

I asked him, "Why is your watch clear up there?"

"My watchband is broken."

So I bought him a new watchband, but soon I saw the watch back up on his arm near his armpit. Yuck!

He had a habit of calling just as we were finishing dinner so he could come over and eat our leftovers. One night after he finished I put his plate on the floor and let Mo, our boxer dog, lick the plate. When it looked pretty clean, I put it back in the cupboard saying dogs are handy to have around. The watchband man never called again. (Yes, after he left I washed all the plates in the dishwasher.)

I started attending Parents Without Partners and enjoying all their activities. One time they held a tennis tournament and I won a trophy because I was the only female that showed up. My children were so proud when I brought it home. I thought it was kind of funny.

A typical singles activity always had about six men with twenty-six women and the things the women would do to get noticed by the men were downright funny. One time we held a mixer record-dance. As the dance was about to get started it was painfully obvious we didn't have enough men. So I said in a loud voice, "I know where to get some men!"

On the other side of the building was a bar. I walked up to a handsome man and asked if he was married. He said no, so I said, "Come on, you're needed in here." I grabbed his drink, pulled him off the barstool and took him into the mixer-record dance. He had a wonderful time, and told me later how much fun he had had and how glad he was I had pulled him off his barstool.

At another dance, the only man that would ask me to dance was a short, Hispanic type that whispered Spanish in my ear. I answered with "No, no ... no... no," because I didn't understand what he was saying but I knew "No" would take care of it.

A couple of months later at a Parents Without Partners meeting a great big handsome, gorgeous hunk got up to talk. He stated he would like to trade home-repair for a home-cooked meal. I stood up waving, wiping the drool off my chin, and saying, "I have a broken screen door I would love to trade for a steak dinner with apple pie!" He agreed to come over on Saturday night so I went home from the meeting and kicked my screen out. As he was fixing the door, he asked how this happened. I just said, "Oh, you know kids!"

PWP potlucks were pretty fun, especially since the men only brought wine. I learned so much about the different types and kinds of wine. I also learned that the men were really hungry for a home-cooked meal and made sure that I always had a complete dinner fixed, because, sometimes even the women brought only wine. This latter fact explains why, at a Halloween party, I was riding around on the shoulders of a very big man holding up a rope from his neck because it was part of his costume, saying, "See everybody, this is what his costume looks like!" He looked up at me and said, "I'm so glad I joined PWP, this is so much fun!"

My house became a real recreation center during this period, with people playing Ping-Pong in the basement family room, people dancing in the living room, people jumping on the trampoline in the back yard, and people eating and visiting in the kitchen.

Eventually, at one of my parties I met a handsome air traffic controller who wore a mustache and fell madly in love with him.