It was in the early 1980s when my being single escapades found me in Brooklyn where I had decided to attend this singles get-together at some woman's apartment who was the hostess for these small gatherings. This was a change from the bars and clubs and blind dates where people could meet in a more intimate quieter venue. The hostess, I believe I had met in advance who provided the opportunity for single people to meet in her apartment for a small fee.

Being the polite,courteous, respectful mensch I was, I thought it would be nice to bring some food to the party,although the hostess provided refreshments . I brought an unusual tasty offering that an acquaintance of mine cooked and sold as a side business...quiches. I brought a crab quiche.

Apparently my quiche aroused the interest of a woman at this gathering I had no interest in. I surmised she wondered who this handsome gentleman was that furnished this noble magnanimous gesture . I believe I was the only person there who brought a gift that evening. I was given her phone number by the hostess in the possibility I might want to contact her. Her name was Ellen. Our phone numbers were not given out without our permission.


I asked out another woman who I thought was attractive. I think we went out just once. Of the several young women at this gathering, I don't recall anyone who really sparked my interest. Sitting and eating wine and cheese and other refreshments in the apartment in a relaxed non pressured environment made it fairly easy even for a usually shy person like myself to be able to talk to strangers.

Eventually, I called this woman named Ellen and something must have clicked as we went out more than once. I really liked Ellen and wanted to impress her and hoped our relationship would continue. We went to see some concert on one of our first dates at the Westbury Music Fair. I don't recall too much about the evening except for our drive home to Queens on the Long Island Expressway.

You see I have this aversion to spiders that I don't divulge to most people. I'd even go as far as to say it's a fear because.....WELL IT IS. Driving home from Westbury, a rather small spider suddenly appeared traversing my window shield on the inside ! My panic mode emerged. To Ellen's surprise and alarm, I would assume, my arachniphobia had me pulling off on the shoulder of the expressway screaming for Ellen to get out of the car. I got an umbrella out of the trunk to squash the arachnid from a safe distance where I disposed of it by rubbing it on the concrete.

After this unnerving event that tarnished my male libido, I drove Ellen home with neither of us barely uttering a sound,though by her looks,she must have been thinking who the hell is this nut I'm with. I knew I would probably never see Ellen again after that night.

As fate would have it, I married the bitch. . It's been 30 plus years of hell. I wish that quiche was laced with arsenic. We celebrated our 30th anniversary in August of 2015 at a surprise party given by our daughter at an elegant North shore Long Island restaurant. I suspect my quiche and boyhood charm won out over my fear of spiders back then. We've survived all these years although I'm still anything but unflappable around anything with eight legs.