Poor Bubs, I tried to make him be social...

My favorite fan in the world—the one who will forever be known by the very appropriate Texas sobriquet, Bubs—asked me to write a blog today. Sometimes he still acts like a shy little boy and it makes me smile literally ear to ear—and that's the subject of today’s blog. I thought he looked like the cute little guy I’ve known for so long; he thinks I “embarrassed the shit” out of him. Tomato, tomahto—right?

Bubs worked from home yesterday, and we desperately needed a grocery trip. My plan was to pack Ashley up and start getting used to doing the things I’m going to have to do as a stay-at-home mom. Ever since I was put on bedrest, Bubs has more or less treated me like a delicate piece of porcelain—whose value has apparently increased now that I’ve got a five-and-a-half-week-old attached to me most of the day. So he insisted on going to the store with me.

No problem—I love spending time with him. And Ashley is starting to smile. No surprise: she smiles biggest in response to his voice. So clearly, she loves spending time with him too.

We basically use two grocery stores. One is a Safeway about 8 minutes away. The other is Fry’s, about 20 minutes out. We like Fry’s better, but because it’s further, we don’t go there as often. And since we hadn’t been in a while, we had no idea that a new street taco-themed restaurant had opened in the shopping center. When the delicate piece of porcelain saw street tacos, she decided she wanted about 20 of them.

So, true to its name, though it was an indoor restaurant, it was set up exactly like a food truck: wait in line, order on one side, watch them prep the tacos, then move along to pay. In front of us was a huge family—obviously fresh from a school promotion or graduation. They were speaking Spanish. At the tail end of the family was a super cute younger couple, probably late 20s, who looked like they were the aunt and uncle of the promotee. She was short like me, wearing the celebratory family t-shirt, but with the most beautiful skirt. She looked like a million bucks. She smiled at Ashley, and I told her in my very broken Spanish that I loved her skirt.

Without even looking, I could feel Bubs groaning. His chances of getting out of this restaurant peacefully without me being social were officially gone.

She told me she was sorry she didn’t speak Spanish, even though her family did. I told her I thought her skirt was one of the most adorable things I’d ever seen—and that, as a fellow short girl, flattering long skirts are a rare find. She agreed and said Ashley was the cutest baby she’d seen in forever and loved her little locks of red hair. And that was it—we were off to the races, chatting like old friends.

I let her hold Ashley, and she said she was ready to have kids of her own but someone hadn’t proposed yet. I looked up, about to playfully chide her boyfriend, and I saw it: the exact same “oh no, not again—I’m being sucked into socializing” face that Bubs had. She caught what I was thinking and said, “He’s really sweet, he just gets embarrassed with how much I can talk.” I laughed and told her, “Oh, I have one of those too,” and grabbed Bubs by the arm to pull him into the conversation.

I LOVE doing this to him, because he instantly turns into a little boy and gets this “Awwww, Mom, you’re embarrassing me! I don’t wanna make friends!” look on his face. I practically had to make him shake hands and introduce himself. Watching two introverts forced to interact by their painfully social wives and girlfriends? Hilarious. They sort of grunted “hello” and then tried to disappear into the menu.

I kept talking to my new friend. Turns out she’s a teacher in our district, so we had even more in common. By the time we reached the register, we’d texted each other to exchange contact info. She handed Ashley back to me, who had been a perfect little doll the entire time. As we waited for our tacos, she mentioned that she’s moving back to elementary school next year and was worried about the cost of decorating her classroom. I told her I have box after box after box of classroom decorations and teaching supplies—she’s welcome to go through them, or just take everything. She was super excited. We hugged goodbye and made tentative plans for her to come over sometime this summer.

As we were getting in the car, she texted me to say how nice it was to meet me—and apologized that her boyfriend hadn’t been friendlier. I texted her back a smiley face and said, “I’ve been married to the exact same personality for 11 years—I know he did his best.” She sent a laughing emoji in return.

I actually have a friend here.

Once we got Ashley all situated, Bubs said, “I can’t even conceptualize how you just did that.”
“Did what—be nice to people?”
“Yeah, I guess... But you turned a compliment about a skirt into... whatever that was and embarrassed the shit out of me.”

I laughed and told him he could’ve made a friend too, if he hadn’t just stood there and grunted. His mad little-boy voice kicked in again: “I don’t need new friends.”

So of course, I mimicked him in my best monosyllabic impression: “Me man. Me don’t need friends.”

I knew I’d won when he stuttered and mumbled, “Shut up, Dani”--and then asked me to blog about it.