If I’d paid better attention in my high school physics class, I may never have wound up dating and later marrying my dear husband, Bruce.

I met Bruce when I when a graduate student at Dartmouth College.  One Sunday, his housemates invited my roommate, Meredith, and me to a picnic.  The first time I laid eyes on him, Bruce sat at a table with his back to me.  All my superficial self could see was his unspeakably terrible horrible awful hairstyle. Apparently, he’d gotten a cut just before flying home from a yearlong graduate school stint in Poland.  Suffice it to say that Bruce’s Polish barber must have harbored a nasty grudge against Americans, or perhaps a grudge against Bruce, in particular. At the picnic, Bruce and I spoke briefly, but to be honest, I spent much more time chitchatting with the other eligible bachelors, all of whom sported lovely haircuts.

So, I didn’t give a second thought to Bruce.  In fact, I wound up going to a dance with one of his nicely coifed buddies.  However, that evening began with a disaster—I spilled a pitcher of lemonade on the interior of his BMW.  And, it ended with disappointment:  Nice Hair Guy did not like to dance.

Now to the physics part of this story:  I loved my roommate dearly, but Meredith happened to be better than me at just about everything:  math, physics, attracting guys, driving, running, and tennis.  (To be honest, being better than me at tennis wasn’t such a big achievement.  At the first and only Dartmouth tournament I entered, my opponent beat me soundly while smoking his pipe!)

Meredith’s superiority irked me.  I desperately searched for an area in which I could excel; no, where I could triumph.  Naturally, arm wrestling came to mind.  I’d left high school with the faulty belief that the shorter the lever the more powerful it would be.  For me, this translated into an untested assumption:  my short weensy arms held a tremendous mechanical advantage over Meredith’s long muscular arms.  I felt convinced that not only would I win an arm wrestling match, but I would do so in a heartbeat.

To her credit, Meredith refused to arm wrestle me, citing many reasons including our marked size difference.  And to be honest, she is not an arm wrestling kind of gal.  But I pestered and pestered. In fact, were I smart, I would have left it at that:  I’m a far better at pestering than Meredith.  So, you see, I do excel at something.

But, not only did I possess an infirm grasp of physics, I was not smart enough to stop pestering.  Ultimately, I wore her down.  So, one afternoon, Meredith and I arm-wrestled.  I hung on for a long, painful few minutes, after which, Meredith slammed down my arm with a winning thud.

Being such a good sport, I attempted to shake hands, only to find I couldn’t raise or extend my arm. A trip to the emergency room revealed I’d sprained lots of important muscles. I left wearing a sling.

Here is the semi-romantic part of the story.  With my arm in a sling, I couldn’t manage the shift in my Dodge Colt.  Bruce, recently back from Poland, did not even own a car.  And, I owned a car I couldn’t drive.  Turned out, we both wanted to attend a month-long film series in a neighboring town.   Spending four Saturday nights in a row with Bruce gave me plenty of time to see beyond a bad hair cut and well into the heart and soul of the wonderful man to whom I’ve been married these many years.

And Meredith? Fortunately, the arm wrestling episode did not harm our friendship.  We happened to move the same small town in Virginia where our teenage sons have been best buddies almost since birth.

So, I’m grateful that snoozing through high school physics resulted in my nabbing a wonderful husband.  Furthermore, I’m thankful that I still possess superior pestering skills, just about better than anybody I know.