Signs of love in an art supply store

I met my wife in foundation year at Pratt Institute. She was a beautiful, serene girl, looking artsy, but sophisticated. She sat a few tables away from me. She seemed aloof and wouldn’t talk to anybody; little did I know she was nearsighted.

I was really interested, but she was shy. I assumed she was involved. Over the next year or so, we chatted and she was part of a group of us that spent time at the Student Union.

Never asked her out.

I worked at Charlie’s Art Supply store, mornings and afternoons. I was smooth and the way I knew how to make a pass at this girl was to charge lower prices for her expensive choice of oil-based paint, based on the cheaper colors. It was getting her attention, charge for a small canvas when she gets a bigger one. I was moving in for the kill, or at least a date.

One day in the Student Union, one of the guys was coming on strong and insisting she go to the dance with him. I swaggered over and said to him, she cannot go with you, she is going with me and agreed the day before.
He backed off, and I gave her the option of going with me or not, since I knew he was getting her upset.
She turned to me and said she would go with me and was waiting for me to ask her out for the past year.

All my smooth moves in the art supply store, charging lower prices for paint; alizarin crimson for the price of white…were not needed, or were they what made me irresistible.

I will never really know in spite of what she tells me.

If you go to art school, get a job in the art supply store; it is great for picking up girls, as long as you can charge expensive colors with cheap color prices.