Short Love Stories

I'm re-reading Robert Fulghum's Uh-Oh, and there's a brief chapter on "Short Love Stories." I'm such a sucker for this kind of thing. You know what I mean-- a brief connection in a coffee shop with a stranger, a shared laugh in the produce aisle. They're the "ships passing in the night" moments. They don't undermine our real relationships, they just make life a little sweeter. We can't always tell these stories, and there are some people who don't understand that they're simultaneously precious and innocuous. Here are some wee examples of my own:

• I moved to Bethesda, MD in January of my junior year of high school. I walked through downtown each morning on my way to school, using saying hello to the people I passed. On Valentine's Day that winter, a young man was waiting on a corner with a flower. We'd said hello a couple of times, and it turned out he was waiting for ME! Of course, we quickly sorted out that he was in college and I was 16, but it was a charming introduction to my new home.

• The sweet middle school saxophone player who said I looked like a gypsy. (To my 8th grade self, that was a compliment.)

• The handsome toll booth worker who laughed and teased me about getting lost, and showed me where to make a U-turn.
  

There's a whole subcatagory of country music about this-- my favorite being Conway Twitty's "Tight-Fittin' Jeans," but there are many.

Can I hear your little love stories?