Steve Martin, Bob Segar, and Interviewing; or How I Met The Mrs.

Five Year Old:  “Sounds like a subdural hematoma to me.”

Doctor:  “Three years of nursery school, and you think you know it all!  Well, you’re still wet behind the ears.  It’s not a subdural hematoma – it’s epidural!  Ha!”

–The Man With Two Brains

Steve Martin does not officially endorse my marriage.  Officially.  And the restraining order says I can’t show up at his house at 4am to ask him to endorse it anymore.  I’m sure his advisors aren’t aware that we are really best friends.

It’s Friday, so technically this should be a health post.  It’s about health because married couples try to live longer so they can win that final argument, like two old pythons arguing about who is older and has more wrinkles from squeezing Mongolian herdsmen.  So, there.

What follows is a mostly true story, except for the exaggerations for the sake of humor or whimsy – I’ll point out when some of the more incredible facts are Really Odd But Amazingly True with the flag (ROBAT).  And ROBAT makes me think of a robot bat superhero who texts in ALL CAPS JUST LIKE THIS.  But, it’s still amazing because he’s a bat who texts.

Anyhow.

Let’s rewind our clocks back to when Bill Clinton was still indicating that he “did not have sex with that woman,” and The X-Files® was not starring some wrinkly old people.  Cell phones were for the rich and insecure.  iMac® was a thing, but iPod© wasn’t and iPhone™ meant you were talking with someone for whom spelling had little meaning.

I was in the basement of Casa Wilder 2.0 (I’m on 5.0 now) on a stair climber.  This particular stair climber was one of my favorite pieces of exercise equipment I’ve ever owned – it used hydraulic pistons that look like shock absorbers for resistance.  After about 20 minutes on the climber if a drop of sweat fell off my intensely furrowed brow and hit on of the hydraulic pistons, it would immediately boil off with a sizzling sound and the smell of boiling sweat.  And it had cables and rollers that could easily chop off a toddler’s finger.  Sadly, they don’t make them anymore.

I was nearly divorced – I’d been separated for over two years, and the paperwork was finally winding its way through the courts for final approval.  Why do divorces take so long?  Because good things happen to patient people.

I’d dated several girls, but none of the relationships had gone particularly well.  Nothing horrible, mind you, except for the married Internet girl “honestly it’s like we’re roommates,” and the other married Internet girl “we never even see each other.”  I stopped the relationships pretty soon after those facts came out.

I had, in fact, said in a prayer one night (in frustration), “Okay, I give up.  You figure it out.”  I assumed (and assume) that God has a sense of humor.  It was a Monday in March, about this time of year.

Recently I’d gotten very, very tired of the same twenty classic rock songs on a seemingly permanent repeat cycle, especially Bob Segar.  I can’t listen to any of his music anymore – it was on a rotation of about 2 Bob Segar songs an hour.  “. . . the same old cliché, is that a woman or a man . . .”  No, Bob, if you have such a problem with people making fun of your long hair, cut it.  Sheesh.

The result was I started listening to the post-Nirvana® 1990’s rock on station B which was entirely Segar-Free.  It might not have been metal, but it certainly had the virtue of not being Bob Segar.  Seriously, you have no idea the depth of my loathing for Bob Segar.

But yet I owe him something . . . .

So, listening to Station B on a Tuesday the day after my cheeky prayer.  Every night there was a game show or giveaway.  And on Tuesday, the game show was Hollywood Movie Trivia® – the DJ would play a clip from a movie, and you’d have to have to call in first to name the movie.  And this one was (for a super-genius like me) ridiculously easy – it’s the movie quote at the top of the post.

The DJ played the clip and then went to a commercial.

I called in.  Note that my phone at this point was still corded.  Stuck to the wall.  Busy signal.

I hit redial.  Busy signal.

I hit redial once more.  Still busy.

The commercial break was almost over, so I gave up and went back to sweating on superheated pistons.

“We still don’t have a winner . . . “

Redial.  Phone answered . . . this is Station B – what’s the name of the movie?

“The Man With Two Brains.”

“We have a winner.”  Queue sound effect of ringing bell and applause.

I’d won a CD.  White Town – Women in Technology.  Yeah, it’s not real memorable.

Also, I’d won a free photo session at Glamour Shots©.  Glamour Shots® was a strange phenomenon in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  Essentially you went and the photographer would gussy you up with feather boas, makeup, soft fuzzy light and background.  Essentially time consuming selfies.

Not pictured: Me.  I’d attribute this if I could – no idea of where it came from.

After reveling in my newfound photographic and CD wealth, I started talking to the DJ.  Seemed kinda cool – we talked for 10 minutes or so.  We never would have had the chance to talk for those 10 minutes if the DJ would have had to dump me after the commercials.  As it was, the only chance to talk to her and not sound creepy was on that one conversation.  (ROBAT)

The next morning I went to work (city of about a million people) and mentioned to two of them that I thought the DJ was neat.  Oh, the DJ was a girl.  One of the two friends (DJWendyV, fan of all things Prince® – she had a two-bedroom apartment and one bedroom was decorated entirely in Prince©-related stuff) replied:  “I know her, she’s not dating anyone.  I’ll set you two up for St. Patrick’s Day.”  And she did.  (ROBAT)

On St. Patrick’s Day we were to meet at 10 or so.  I got to the bar about 9:30.  The place was packed, and DJWendyV was spinning mad tunes (is that even a phrase?) and she mentioned that the DJ would be there soon – soon being 10:30 or so.  I had some friends there as wingmen, and soon enough I was introduced to the DJ, or, The Mrs. To Be.

I immediately called her by the name she used on the radio.

The Mrs. To Be:  “No, it’s really REDACTED.”

John Wilder:  “Why don’t you use your real name?”

The Mrs. To Be:  “You know . . . stalkers.”

John Wilder:  “Oh.  (long pause)  My friends told me not to bring up stalking on the first date.”  (Yes, I really said that.)

We danced.  We both realized that neither of us were dancers.  We picked out a booth in another room where the music wasn’t so loud.

I got beers for us.  We sat down, and the interview started.  Yes, I did this (LINK).

But a really good interviewer (and I was in top form back then) can make an interview seem like a pleasant conversation by a person that’s interested in you.  And it was pleasant.  And I was interested in her.  But I needed to weed out the kinds of crazy that would conflict with my kinds of crazy.  And also make sure that the person shared the same core values I did.  (ROBAT)

I was pleasantly surprised that The Mrs. To Be was much less neurotic (in the ways that mattered to me) than most of the crazy moonbat girls from my previous relationships.  And she wasn’t married.

Yet.

We stayed until they kicked us out of the bar.  Why did they kick us out of the bar?  Because everyone else had already left – we had been talking for three hours, and it seemed like 15 minutes. (ROBAT)

We walked out of the bar.  There had been hundreds of cars there when I’d gotten there – I’d been lucky to find a good spot.  The Mrs. To Be had showed up nearly an hour later.  Yet, there were only two cars left in the lot.  And they were parked side by side, with matching dents on the driver-side door. (ROBAT)

Apparently God does have a sense of humor, and thankfully for me he’s not subtle when he kicks a message out.  I walked her to the door, and leaned in for the kiss.  (ROBAT)

Which she wasn’t expecting – but, you know, when you’ve got the sign from the Big Coach to run like hell for first base, you do.  She kissed me right back.  (ROBAT)

139 days later, The Mrs. and I were married in a mall in Bally’s® Casino on a Sunday morning.  (ROBAT)

Bob Segar, who brought together two people who were utterly tired of his music.  Thanks, Bob for bringing us together in mutual hatred!  (Image by Adam Freese, CC BY 2.0, Attribution)