Cringing With Bettie Lou

I first met her when I was only sixty-two. I was in the movie theater carrying a protest sign when she straggled in. She was wearing a periwinkle stovepipe hat, which caught my attention right away. It really accentuated her paw, but I pretended not to notice.

I was about to set the protest sign down when she zoomed beside me. I guess she startled me, and I clumsily dropped the protest sign right by her feet. We both bent over to pick it up. It was one of those awkward moments, and we both began to cringe.

After stumbling apologies, I asked her to go to the popcorn shop for a kamikaze. She accepted, and our relationship took off from there. We didn't even know each other's names yet.

At the popcorn shop, I learned that her name was Bettie Lou, and that she was a performer. This was fascinating to me, coming from my career as a wrestler.

I guess it was love at first cringe. Some might say we had jars of olives in our eyes, but we felt we were perfect for each other. She was thirteen years younger than I, but the age difference didn't matter to us. Even today, we are still cringing for each other.