A few days ago, airforcewife wrote about the latest Air Force Family crisis. This reminded me of the day that I met airforcewife (AFW) and Air Force Guy (AFG). AFW and I knew each other from the "virtual world," and had become great "imaginary" friends, but we had never met.
Just before AFG was to deploy to Afghanistan, I received an email from AFW telling me that his departure point would be near my house, and she asked if I would like to get together for lunch. Yay! I would finally get to meet AFW. I jumped at the offer and immediately wrote back that yes, we should do lunch.
When I told Mr. Andi the great news, he didn't think it was so great.
What do you mean you're having lunch with them just before he deploys?
What do you mean, "what do I mean?"
Well, didn't you say they have four kids? Don't you think they might want to have some couple's time sans kids. Sans stranger?
I thought about it for a minute.
So, you think I'll be intruding?
Yes, I do.
I emailed AFW and told her that while I would love to meet them, maybe they should spend their last moments well, without a third wheel. She would have none of it, though and we went forward with plans to meet.
As with all-things-Air Force Family, there was trouble meeting up. First, they were having directional issues which, in their defense, is not an unusual occurrence when trying to navigate Washington traffic. They finally pulled into a parking lot and decided to take a cab over to the lunch location. Next, there were issues hailing a cab. I won't state what the exact issue was, AFW can share that if she wants to. I'll just say that in the end, AFW had to resort to some trickery in order to hail a cab.
At any rate, we met and AFW was exactly as I had pictured her to be. We had a very nice lunch, parted ways and soon AFG was off to Afghanistan.
So, during the crisis the other night, I said to Mr. Andi:
You remember AFG. He's the one I had lunch with just before he deployed.
Oh, yes. I remember. They're the ones you butted in on.
Sigh....
