Some red-headed chick

Magnet #341 - Red-Headed Chick from Corbis

Yay, swag magnet!

So almost 18 years ago, I walked down Skipper Bowles Road, down the giant hill toward Carolina's Dean Dome for the first time ever.

I was an incoming freshman, and our incredibly hot (seriously, you'd have to have seen him to believe it) RA (of course, named Tucker, but because don't all hot guys have the coolest names) said we had to go. Something about Convocation being the first of only two times you'd ever be sitting with all of your own college class.

Dutifully, I went.

And behold the wonder, the Dean Dome. If Yankee Stadium is the church of baseball, then for us, the Dean Dome is surely the Cathedral of college basketball.

I walked into the stands, a little dazed and taking in the view, and I sat down next to this red-headed chick.

We started to make the standard freshmen small talk. But our conversation went something like this:

Her: Where you are from?
Me: Salisbury? (cuz no one's ever heard of it)
Her: You're kidding!!! Where'd you go to school?
Me: East Rowan? (cuz really, who knows the ERHS Mustangs?)
Her: What? I went to North Rowan! Where do you live?
Me: Down Bringle Ferry, just past Dan Nicholas.
Her: What??? I live on Providence Church!
Me: OMG, I drove by you every single day on the way to school!

Dudes. Seriously?

One could argue that North Carolina's a small state with even smaller towns. But, honestly? It's a state school, so our incoming class must have had at least a couple thousand kids. It's my firm belief that only The Powers That Be could have intervened and sat me beside this red-headed chick in a dome that seats 22,000.

Years and lots of memories later...we're still friends.

All because of that one fateful meeting down at the Dome.

Happy birthday, Annette!