The Obvious man of Culture story

1982

A true story about how I met my wife Katherine

Written 2/2010 Re-written 5/24/2016* 644 Words

#132 By Howard Yasgar

In 1982 I had been a bachelor for several years, and I was living in an apartment complex in Miami, called Tahoe springs.

To take up some of my time I went to the Miami Humane Society with my daughter.

They had a cute little hairy black female puppy that they said was called a Schnoodle, it was a combination of a poodle and a schnauzer.

They said the puppy was about 8 months old and had been abandoned, and they had already named the dog Sammy.

I had heard that when picking out a puppy, you should gently pinch it, so it would yelp and run away, then after a few seconds if the puppy returned to you, it meant that it was a forgiving dog and would be a good pet.

I don’t know who said that, but Sammy yelped and ran under a chair and stayed there.

Well, I took Sammy anyway, because her big eyes sparkled and her tongue hung out.

I paid the Humane Society to spay her and give her all the shots.

A couple of days later I picked up my new buddy Sammy.

I decided that because I had plenty of free time I would train Sammy, and teach her silent hand commands.

So, every evening I would work with Sammy, and after several weeks she understood quite a few commands.

Eventually It got to the point that Sammy would walk and follow beside me without a leash.

Then one evening we were taking a walk and Sammy just ran off.

I called her until late in the evening but to no avail.

I finally returned to my apartment, sadly resigned to the fact that Sammy was gone.

In the morning I had breakfast, and as I was ready to leave for work, I opened the apartment door and there was Sammy huffing away with her tongue hanging out.

Where she went or why, I will never know, but she never did that again, and she never needed a leash when we went for walks.

One evening there was an advertisement on TV for a new wine called Coconetta.

I was not a big wine drinker but I Liked coconuts, so I went and bought a bottle.

I already knew it was just a junk novelty wine and would probably disappear shortly.

One summer day, I was walking Sammy around the Tahoe Springs apartment complex and I sat down by one of the swimming pools.

Two women that were sunning there, and they called my cute little Sammy over to pet her.

I waited a few minutes and I walked over to retrieve my puppy, and that’s when I first met Katherine and her mother JoAnn.

They commented on how nice and well-trained Sammy was.

I thanked them, but after that I was a little stumped for words.

I had no idea of what to say to two pretty women, and the only thing I could think of was that I had just bought a bottle of a very cheap wine called Coconetta.

For some reason the Coconetta wine was all I could think to talk about, so I asked Katherine and her mom if they had ever tried it? and they both said “No”.

That was my cue, I immediately volunteered to go up to my apartment and get the bottle of wine for them to try.

I came back down to the pool with a tray.

On the tray I had three wine glasses and the bottle of Coconetta.

Katherine immediately observed that the Coconetta was white wine, and the three wine glasses I brought were white wine glasses.

So, to her, it was obvious that I was a man of culture, a man who knew the difference between white wine and red wine glasses.

What Katherine didn’t know was that as a bachelor I only had four glasses in my whole apartment, and one was a big beer mug that I knew was inappropriate for drinking any kind of wine.

The rest of the story is history.