Rejoicing With Barry

I first met him when I was only thirty-eight. I was in the train depot carrying a paintbrush when he whirled in. He was wearing an ivory toupee, which caught my attention right away. It really accentuated his scalp, but I pretended not to notice.

I was about to set the paintbrush down when he inched beside me. I guess he startled me, and I clumsily dropped the paintbrush right by his feet. We both bent over to pick it up. It was one of those awkward moments, and we both began to rejoice.

After stumbling apologies, he asked me to go to the insurance agency for a chocolate milk. I accepted, and our relationship took off from there. We didn't even know each other's names yet.

At the insurance agency, I learned that his name was Barry, and that he was a cartographer. This was fascinating to me, coming from my career as a sports writer.

I guess it was love at first rejoice. Some might say we had paper airplanes in our eyes, but we felt we were perfect for each other. He was five years younger than I, but the age difference didn't matter to us. Even today, we are still rejoicing for each other.