Small Shipping Boxes in Seattle
I was listening to the radio one day while keeping busy at work with unpacking some small shipping boxes. I was in the back storeroom so I could take my time and really be dreamy about what I was hearing. I was taking our new shipment and restocking the back shelves, which we would use to restock the front shelves over time and in lesser quantities. This was my life, living in Seattle, unpacking small shipping boxes and listening to the radio. What station, you may be curious and yet too self-conscious to ask. Well, curiosity killed the cat, you know. Actually, I don’t know why that’s even a saying, and this has nothing to do with cats, so I will tell you the whole story.
It was the love channel, which played amazingly wonderful and sappy romance dialogue from movies, and trending pop and r&b songs just dripping with emotion. In between all of it was the DJ, this woman with the voice of a courtsesan, constantly congratulating everyone for their healthy love lives, or encouraging them to love themselves because then somebody else would come along when they were ready, or reminding us all to evaluate our relationships and make sure they are healthy, that we aren’t in them because we are running away from something else. I’m talking some really good advice that this woman would give. She always made me feel better about being single (she refused to equate ‘singleness’ with ‘aloneness’, and encouraged those of us in that tax bracket to do the same).
Anyway, I fell in love with Archie because of that show. He called in one day and started telling the DJ about how he just knew that the love of his life was out there, he just didn’t know how to find her. He said, “I know she’s alone right now, just standing there listening to this and not knowing it’s her…” He might as well have said, “I know she’s unpacking small shipping boxes even as we speak…” I basically hunted Archie down after hearing that. I wrote to the radio station and told them that I was Archie’s someone, and how could I find him please?
It didn’t take long to track him down. I showed up on his doorstep and told him it was me. “I know,” he said, and he smiled. Everything after that is history, and the good kind to boot.
