Human resources manager, 50, & operations manager, 46, Riverview
Met: At NOLA airport
Together: 6 years
The story: Out of over 9 million people that travel through the New Orleans airport year after year, I met Billy there. He was standing in front of me waiting for a drink at a bar in the Southwest wing of the airport. I, too, was waiting for a drink, returning to Tampa from a business trip. As this stranger in front of me turned to leave, his backpack knocked over an empty beer bottle on the bar counter and it came crashing down in front of me. Or so I thought. The beer bottle actually bounced on the concrete floor flying into the air and I caught it with one hand! In disbelief, I handed it back to the stranger. I could not believe the glass didn’t shatter. As I’m thinking this, the clutzy stranger proclaims with a smile, “Wow, it didn’t break, it must be our ‘LUCKY DAY’!”
I quizzically smiled back and left the bar thinking, well, that kind of sounded a bit like a pickup line, but I’ll never see that person again. Moments later at my gate, the stranger sat down next to me at my gate. “You’re going to Tampa?” I ask. “No” he replied, “I’m returning home to San Francisco.” He’s just notoriously early wherever he goes. We talked until I had to board my flight and I gave him my business card. He was a boat captain working in the Gulf and I was an HR manager hiring sailors for a maritime company. Again, I never thought I’d see this random stranger again since we literally lived on opposite ends of the country! Until he sent me an email, then a phone call, than more phone calls, followed by two dozen roses with the words “Lucky Day Indeed!” We fell in love over the phone. Now six years later we are married and the theme of our wedding was, well you guessed it, “Lucky Day Indeed”!
Vote for Rachel and Billy here.
