The Definition of Wow

When I was growing up there was a great TV program called Candid Camera. Unsuspecting People would be set up for semi-surreal situations and inevitably, at the point where these people were not sure themselves whether or not they'd just fallen down a rabbit hole, the announcer would intone, "Smile! You're on Candid Camera!"

They'd suddenly thus understand how they'd found themselves in such unexpected situations.

Last night I had a dinner date with someone I met on that site aforementioned. We'd been exchanging emails for four days and had talked on the phone and I'd be lying if I said looking forward to meeting him wasn't something I'd been doing since...well, since I'd read his profile. Yet at the back of my mind the Realist came to life and I reflected briefly over my past experiences with that site.

They didn't exactly result in any second dates, and that was my choice.

If you don't connect, you don't connect.

I hate to admit it but hopeless romantic or not there was a part of me that was beginning to suspect that feeling of meeting someone and 'just knowing', that spending five minutes with someone and having it feel like you had always been meant to spend time with them, was an experience only doled out by the universe one to a person, and I'd already had mine.

It had appeared unanticipated that four a.m. rain-sodden morning (is there any other kind?) in Seattle, Washington when I spied Brent Babcock across the lobby of a very vacant Amtrak station. We were married two weeks shy of twelve months later and even when it ended after thirteen years together and two years legally separated, all things considered to have had that feeling made it time well spent.

Even looking very forward to meeting this person, I was completely taken by surprise because we hadn't been seated at our table that long, we hadn't exchanged that many words, I don't think we'd even ordered an entree, and completely unexpectedly, it began to feel very much like a very rainy four a.m. in Seattle.

And it rained all through dinner and it poured when I looked in his eyes and especially when he walked me to my car in a downpour and kissed me goodnight.

I never kiss on the first date.

Never.

And there I was, never having felt so right both being kissed and kissing back and -- I'm positive of it--messing up his excellent hair because I couldn't keep my hands out of it.

Wow.

That's about the extent of my communicative abilities today and has been my most coherent comment when asked by any of my friends how the date went. Seemed sufficient enough when coupled with the look on my face but I did expand on it once. This is all I could come up with:

"Wow. It's a three letter English word for 'incredible', 'amazing', '...didn't see that one coming', 'Oh my gosh,' and 'hot damn!', respectively.

That seemed explanation enough.

I wasn't home five minutes when the doorbell rang and there was Lainie without even a hello, sizing me up I'm sure.

"Oh. My. God," she said.

"Yep."

Basil and I edged past her and she followed us around on a short but necessary pre-bed walk.

"So what's he like?"

I tried, you know, to say something. Just like I tried again and again and for some reason I will never understand (that's not true. I understand perfectly well. Blame it on the rain), the ability to form sentences, conjugate simple verbs and enunciate at all had left me.

Lainie stared for a minute, fished a Marlboro from her jacket pocket, and laughed as she lit it.

"Well damn," she finally managed, "Good for you!"

I am ever grateful Basil is not one of those companion animals who require witty repartee because I didn't have any to offer. I was too busy reliving the evening in my head if you want to know the truth and I'm sure that explains why, when I showered and reached for the hair conditioner later what I actually applied was the shampoo -- again.

I went to bed and fell asleep still reliving the evening in my mind, happy to rewind over every detail.

Very happy to note that at no point did an announcer's voice shatter the idyll, announcing my presence on Candid Camera.

I can't swear to it, but the last thing I heard before falling asleep was a distinct, "Wow!"

Could have been me.

Could have been Basil.

Could have just been the universe.