When my husband and I were first getting to know each other back in the 1990s, we spent a lot of time emailing. A lot. After a while, I began to notice that all of the “timestamps” on my then-boyfriend’s emails ended with 37 – as in, his message had been sent at 08:24:37 or 12:54:37 or 01:10:37.
This amused me to no end, because 37 was and always has been my favorite number. “How crazy is it,” I said to him once, “that all your emails come in with that timestamp? It’s as if we were destined to be together!” (OK, I think I said something like that. I have a bad memory. Let’s go with it.)
To which he responded, “I’ve been doing that on purpose.”
“What?”
“I sit and wait until the second hand reaches 37, and then I push send.” (See? We’re old. This was back in the day when you could do that. Or at least he could; I wouldn’t have known how to see said timestamp.)
He said all of this very matter-of-factly. No blushing. No sheepishness.
I thought it was the most romantic thing ever.
Yesterday, my then-boyfriend-now-husband came home and said a student had asked him in class why my husband always uses 37s in his coding examples.
“You do?” I exclaimed.
“Sure,” he answered, again very matter-of-factly.
“What did you say?”
He shrugged. “I told them it’s my wife’s favorite number. They laughed a little.”
Seventeen years later, and he’s still thinking of me and catering to my weird number fetish, even when I’m not there to know.
That’s true love, folks.
Alan and I love this story!!
You should enter this in the Washington Post Magazine column called “Mine” with stories like this. Lovely and unique!
Thank you so much for the suggestion, Melodie. I’m glad you enjoyed it!