Missed It By This Much

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

It was the first really cold morning of fall and I was running around the house trying to find my jacket, and oh shoot, where were my keys? It was a Monday of course.

So that was how I not only ended up running late for work, but how I found myself on the dreaded bus instead of in my car (I never did find my car keys that morning). Hurrying down the street, crunching through a carpet of red leaves with my high heels, I rounded the corner to the bus stop just in time to see the bus pull away. Of course. If only I had been wearing my sneakers I could have run to caught it.

The next bus arrived, standing room only, at least it was cold out so the air inside the bus was only mildly perfumed with body odor. About half way through the journey we reach downtown where the hardened commuters were replaced by confused tourists. This is the problem with where my office is located, right smack in the middle of tourist central, Pier 39. I braced myself for the inevitable onslaught of mundane questions I would receive when the selfie stick wielding masses realize they were in the company of a real live San Franciscan. Just when I thought all hope was lost, a savior appeared in the form of spilled coffee on my once white (now mocha) colored blouse. Thankfully the coffee was lukewarm, but the man who spilled it on me was not.

“So sorry!” he exclaimed with a strong accent I couldn’t quite place.

As I looked up from my ruined top my anger was melted by his smoldering brown eyes, and I was immediately transformed into a stammering idiot.

It was his idea to take me out to breakfast to make up for the accident. It was my idea to text my boss to say I was sick.

Enzo was Italian, and breakfast was amazing. Okay the food was standard tourist-trap slop, but the company, well that was something else. And he felt the same way too, OH MY GOSH HE FELT THE SAME WAY TOO! So we did what any two people who were quickly falling in love would do, we went back to my place… so I could change out of my coffee stained blouse and into something a little more comfortable than high heels and a pencil skirt.

When I emerged from my bedroom in my carefully curated outfit I was once again awestruck by this perfect man, who was now standing in the middle of my cramped living room.

“Are you ready to accompany me to Stow Lake?” he crooned.

“Oh yes” I replied, “just let me put my shoes on.”

As I picked up my sneakers something clinked out and landed on the floor. My car keys. I casually retrieved them and hung them on the hook above my shoe rack, took Enzo by the hand, and sauntered out the front door.