It was calling your name!

It's odd how something can happen to you when you are around a friend of love one that will impact the two of you for the rest of your lives. Yeah, if you were alone, it might have made you smile, frown, laugh, or cry. But by the simple act of sharing the experience, it becomes life changing.

Two such acts happened to Steve and I our first year together. Neither of them big or important.

It Was Calling My Name
When Steve and I were first dating, we hung out with an ex-sister-in-law of mine, Tressa, and her husband James. They were newly weds and a little odd. Okay, a lot odd. But then, Steve and I have never been classified as sane either.

One day we stopped by their house and Tressa was all aflutter about a piece of pottery that James had bought her. To be honest, I can't remember what it was. What I do remember was that it was the largest, tackiest, ugliest piece of crap I'd ever seen. It wouldn't have surprised me if darling James hadn't found it near a dumpster and brought it home.

To add insult to injury, Tressa had to tell us about how he was driving down the road and glanced it out of the corner of his eye. He immediately thought, "That is calling Tressa's name." and went back for it. And it must have been, because she loved it like only a mother can love an ugly baby.

It was calling Steve's Name
My mother was notorious for getting us the worst gifts ever for every occasion. And it wasn't that she bought cheap gifts, she just didn't know us. For our wedding, she gave us a ceramic piece that was a water bottle with a nearly naked Indian woman on the front of it. She'd special ordered it and it was hand painted in ugly and unattractive colors. The style, object, coloring . . . nothing we would have EVER picked out. But hey, it was better than the rock with trash glued to it that Uncle Eddy gave us a few years later. Or maybe not, Eddy at least made his gift.

For Steve's first birthday's as a part of my family, my mother bought him a gift off the side of the road. (And I'd just like to state for future reference, this is generally not a place I see things I'm just dying to own.) She honestly used the same words Tressa did, almost.

"I was driving back from ??? and I saw it hanging over this truck that was selling stuff. It was calling Steve's name." She even went on to tell me how much she paid for it, and it was pricey for her budget. It just wasn't Steve.

Dying to know what it was, aren't you? It was a tanned beaver hide. Yep, my mother gave Steve a beaver for his birthday. I guess she thought he wasn't getting any.

So for the better part of the last thirteen years, "It's calling your name," has become our catch phrase for "Isn't that the tackiest piece of shit you've ever seen? And, if you bring it home to me I'm going to brain you with it."