11:11 P.M. (Part 1)

I went into work that night and saw our names on the schedule together and had no idea who he was because I hadn't worked with him before. Luckily, Vikki was also working with us, so I followed her into the back corner of the factory. (TJ says that work keeps his mind occupied, so as soon as he finds out where he's supposed to be, he tears off without looking back.) Here's how it went: the printed cups came down this little ramp in stacks of 12. Vikki stood there and packed them in a box, and then I took the box and put bags of lids and straws in it before sending it through the tape machine and stacking it on a wooden pallet. TJ's job was to make sure the print on the cups looked right, load stacks of cups into the printer and make up boxes for Vikki, other than that he pretty much talked to us.

For the first half hour or so, I basically carried on with my job, listening to them talk back and forth, not saying much. It's part of my nature. I'm perfectly content to sit and listen to other people talk, not contributing anything to the conversation. Then the subject of music came around and we all talked about our interests. TJ said that he liked rock and metal the most and I commented on how I knew as much because every night he comes in to work with his music absolutely blaring. I always thought his truck was going to rattle apart. And then he told me about how he can't hear out of his left ear because he had been in the service and while he was over there, a grenade exploded close to him and he lost all hearing in his left ear. So he plays his music loud enough to hear it. He also can't see very well out of his left eye and has a pair of glasses that he wears at work to help him. (editor's note: he looks ADORABLE in his glasses! hehe)

The first thing he ever said to me was, "Are you a vegetarian?" I was wearing a hoodie that night that said ADOPT A TREE, I had stolen it from my sister, who's in the middle of this vegetarian stage. I remember saying something along the lines of, "Oh God, no!" Then he asked if I was a hippie and I laughed and said no. And then he asked what kind of music I like and I admitted, with a little shame, that my tastes tend to run off in the emo direction. That went over well, lol! He started teasing me and calling me emo, and I didn't mind one bit. I don't mind. It was all for fun. I have the emo glasses, the side-parted bangs, an industrial in my ear... I'm pretty emo. And then he said, "So there are two things I know about you: you're emo, and you love your pug." I was a little thrown about the pug part because we hadn't talked about them, but then I remembered that I have one of those sign thingies in my car that says I LOVE MY PUG.