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This is how I met my wife.
I was gonna work as a storyteller,
and I wanted to get storytelling gigs,
but I didn't know anything that I was gonna do
for my storytelling,
but I thought, "Well, I'll put it together,
"but I still need a place to pay the rent...
A way to pay the rent."
So I end up going over to this group home
and they hired me for second shift,
but they hired me for three weeks later.
And I said, "You got anything I can do in between?"
And they said, "Sure, you can go work at the sheltered workshop
for folks who are mentally retarded."
I said, "Great, that would be super."
So I was just going to work during the day.
I show up, and there is a hearing program upstairs
and a deaf program downstairs.
And I look at the lunchroom--
we take turns to make sure nobody took anybody's sandwich,
it was all cool-- we're hanging out over there,
and then it was my turn to go down to the lunchroom,
and I was chatting with my friends and I said,
"Who's that woman over there?"
And he goes, "Oh, she's deaf."
I said, "So what? She can still kiss!"
And I got a paper plate
and I went over and I said, "Hi,"
and I knew nothing about sign language,
I knew nothing about deaf culture,
and she looked at me and thought,
"Oh, a hearing guy again.
Toodaloo!"
And I was only going to be there for three weeks,
so I had to turn the charm on best I could.
It didn't help that the night before,
I'd gone out with my friends and I kinda tied one on
and I was running late for work
and I didn't take a shower that morning,
and she says, "Your hair was so dirty that day."
And it was a little bit dirty with a blond ponytail.
And finally I convinced her
that it would be good to go on a bicycle ride
with my cousin John and I--
we were going to go to Plum Island.
So she agreed because it was going to be three of us
and she wasn't going to be with me,
and later on my friend said,
"Shelby, you thought John was good for you?"
"Oh, yeah."
We end up going to Plum Island,
and after riding a bicycle for a half hour,
those little sparks started happening,
and then we're looking for a way to ditch John.
And we're hanging out and we're at the restaurant,
at the Grog in Newburyport,
we're holding hands underneath the table
and we're just looking at each other.
When you don't know anything about sign language,
you just look in somebody's eyes
and then think about being in love, and you're over there.
And then she started to teach me some sign language.
She never said I had to learn, but it was a thing where I said,
"Oh, okay, I want to learn for this woman,"
and I'm trying to soak it up and figure it out.
And then I moved in after only knowing her a month.
I moved into her apartment
when I got kicked out of my apartment
where they closed it up in Lynn.
And then six months later,
I come home from that job where I was working nights,
and I look and there's a card on the table that said,
"Will you marry me?"
And I was smart enough to say yes,
because I would have waited until about 2053.
So we had a commitment celebration,
and our friends who were gay couldn't get married,
so we thought,
"Well, we're not going to get legally married either."
We had the hoopla, we were there,
and it was a thing where she said that marriage,
a lot of times a woman is channeling, "I'm nobody's..."
I said, "That's right, you're right, you're your own woman."
We get over there.
And we fell in love,
and last August we had our 20th anniversary.
Just amazing to me.
I look over at her and I say,
"I'm the luckiest man in the world."
This is how you do it: lucky man.
So everybody can try, here you go:
lucky man.
(applause)