When Halie and I met, she was the cute new math teacher on the other side of the library at Rifle High School during a staff meeting, and I was – well, she didn’t know I existed. We had broken for lunch, and I was determined to introduce myself and get to know her. It was a fun conversation, and I found out where she was from and how she had decided on Rifle – but that’s where it all went wrong. At some point, I noticed I had ranch dressing in my beard from the salad I was eating. In my haste to grab my napkin to wipe it away, I unwittingly put my hand in even more ranch dressing, thus transferring more of the delicious nectar from my food to my face. From there, it was a vicious cycle. The more I attempted to appear like a normal human adult, capable of even mundane, simple tasks like eating a salad, the sorrier my state became and the more my anxiety grew, setting the cycle in motion again. Eventually, I admitted defeat: thoroughly embarrassed, I muttered something about needing to grab something from my classroom before the next meeting and abruptly stood from the backless cafeteria tables, silently cursing my mid-Western roots. Why couldn’t I have opted for the vinaigrette!? Luckily, Halie does not remember this story, and when I had recovered from my embarrassment, I did not give up on talking to the cute math teacher from Texas. A year later, after months of taking turns buying each other coffee in the morning, so we could hang out before school, we went on our first date at Grove’s Black Dog Saloon. A little over a year after that, in the park next to that same bar, I asked her to marry me. Let the adventure begin.