Happy Birthday to Me: An ordinary, but very deserving, girl’s short story

Due to some very unfortunate, yet completely inevitable circumstances, my most valued companion decided it was not a particularly good idea for him to take me to the museum for my birthday. At the time, those words were the most hurtful thing he could possibly utter because of the fact that his reasoning was based solely on his budding relationship with my future female “replacement”. I came to terms with this news and made myself other arrangements for the day. Not a big deal. The new plan consisted of my dear friend/horse trainer meeting Mom and myself early the next day and proceeding business as usual. To make matters even better, I anticipated spending the evening with one of my closest and most interesting female friends.
The night before the event, as I prepared to set out to said friend’s house, my car decided it wasn’t really in the mood to crank. Dad assumed I knew about this issue and lectured me to Kingdom Come about how I need to pay more attention, especially with him living out of state and being unable to deal with these issues as they arise himself. “Take it to the auto store,” he told me. “See if they can read your battery.” I suffered severe difficulty believing this could become any sort of a major project. Therefore, it was.
It took one look at the jack-nut in the store nearest to my house to know this wasn’t going to work. And my instinct prevailed. Their machine refused to read my battery. I became hysterical on the drive to the second store. “Damn him! Damn him! How could he do this to me?” over and over, as I think about how I wasn’t supposed to drive the next day in the first place. Violet mascara plastered my face, my sweat pants flapped, and my neon orange flip-flops flopped as I drag my hysterical self into the store. “Excuse me, but can anyone read my battery? Please?” And then, what I swear to this day was a gift from Gram*, turns around to say “Why yes ma’am, I can.” I don’t know if it was his eyes or stature, but my tune changed real quick.
We exchanged pleasantries, each made a couple of good jokes, and he even answered all my father’s questions satisfactorily via my cellular device. I was suddenly having a great day, minus looking like my horse drug me through Hell and back home by my ankles. Right before I left, this lovely gentleman walks back out of the store to ask me if I’d like to get some dinner some time, and I told him that why yes, I think I would.

Well, things are progressing nicely, steadily, and quietly. Roughly a month later, I’m typing this on his couch as he studies for his Political Science test. Regardless of how this turns out, to have this story makes anything from that point totally worth it.