#54 HOW I MET CAPTAIN THOR, AKA THE FIRST PERSON I MET AT STARBUCKS

The meet-cute: how he found me again at Starbucks

One day around November 2011, I was grading at Starbucks, and I saw this handsome, muscular man colouring some sort of map with alcohol-based felt tips (markers). You know those Staedtler markers that come in a clear plastic box – like a crayon box but specifically to hold these markers? They’re sort of standard Army-issue it seems (and I’d see these felt tips again in my future with my first husband). 

Product photo from the website here where you can purchase your very own set.

This was back when the Starbucks on Veterans Parkway in Columbus had this big long, family-style wooden table. It was more communal. So, I was on one end of the table with my laptop marking papers/lesson planning/wasting time on the internet/working on my Master’s thesis/whatever I was doing (probably scrolling on Facebook which was still marginally cool) and drinking my Venti Chai Lattes (until I switched to regular tea), eating my cute Starbucks protein bento boxes they’d sell (it came with boiled eggs, cheese, peanut butter, and this really delicious raisin bread, grapes, and apples), whatever.

I feel like it looked a little different than this back then but this is similar to the bento box I used to get at Starbucks and US readers can add this item to their order here. When I was back in the States in November, I was amazed at all this app-based ordering. I feel like I live in the back of beyond in a market town in West Yorkshire where we do not have any chain restaurants outside our controversial ‘Domino’s Pizza’ (which I never have gotten around to ordering).

As we have established, I was a total flirt so if I liked the look of someone, I’d just make glances, flirty eyes, and smiles (probably like an idiot). So, I kept looking up every now and then and smiling at him and he would smile back. 

Long before ‘Wrecking Ball’ graced our ears but I’m sure it’d have been my heartbreak jam back then.

Somehow, we struck up a conversation. I’m sure he said something to me first but I can no longer remember. And, miraculously, I didn’t email myself about every detail of our meeting.

I found out he was a native Alaskan who was obsessed with Norse gods and mythology and wore a Thor’s hammer around his neck that he’d had cast in gold (clearly I didn’t learn from the Scandi Lit Prof encounter to avoid all men who are into sagas). As you can now guess, the Thor’s hammer is why I call him “Captain Thor” and he was caught up in concepts of honour and bravery, but I liked that he read. He liked Egil's Saga and other such “epic” myths and I have one memory of reading it to him when he was in the bath…but I digress…

He left Starbucks, and I continued to work. The next day I spent a solid eight hours working on my thesis chapters, ordering tea at Starbucks so they wouldn’t kick me out of what had become my “office,” since my real office on campus (one Brittany and I shared) was cold, smelled inexplicably of urine, and only contained a bookshelf, a semi-working computer, a desk, an old chair, and a school mascot set in acrylic. Captain Thor entered; he saw me and waved. He said he’d come back to see if I was there. Obviously, I was there.

I had two people come back to find me at Starbucks. Thankfully, I turned out better than Beck…but arguably mentally not… (LOLs).

I said I was starving and did he want to get something to eat; he later told me he had already eaten that night, but he took me for food anyway. I ate like my usual ravenous self, probably ordering three courses, dismantling them with rapidity, and hoovering them up as if I’d never seen food before, which probably scared him. 

Like this except I do eat with my mouth closed.

I’m not sure if it was the same night or another that we went for drinks and we walked back to his apartment. (Clearly, I was never one to make safe choices and any one of these men could really have been a serial killer, but, thankfully, they never were…) 

He’d recently come back from living in Germany so walking to a restaurant wasn’t an alien concept. Of course, anyone who has ever lived in the South knows that people don’t walk places. It’s not even equipped for it. There are no pavements/sidewalks on which to walk. And he lived in a gated apartment complex so I’m sure we had to walk up to the gates designed for cars not people to swipe the key card.

I remember the dress I was wearing when we slept together for the first time. Somehow I didn’t put on matching underwear, which I usually did. Maybe that was my way of not trying too hard (reminding me of the story of my first date that you can read here)? I recall wearing a black bra and pink and white striped silky Victoria’s Secret knickers (now I’m full-on Bridget Jones most of the time – welcome to middle age?).

Oh look! I took three variations of flip phone selfies for posterity. I still love this dress but alas, the cheap Target PVC faux 'leather' jacket did not survive.

I discovered to my delight and surprise that he was incredibly well-endowed (shallow, I know). (And there have always been those men who berate women who express a preference for men on the larger side, calling them derogatory names.) And just like Cowboy and Captain Cambridge, people with those “gifts” love to be a show-off. A while later, I’d find a photograph of him naked in his early Army days running down a corridor with his friends. His “battle buddy” must have taken it.

However, I’ve never been one for dirty talk. It generally turns me off. The doctor (the previous person I’d slept with – of course, to be written about later) wanted me to try dirty talk but it felt very alien to me. Captain Thor had no such compunctions about asking if I was into it and I recall during sex him saying something along the lines of “I bet you like that don’t you, little lady?” Well, I might have up until that moment…

I’ll also never get the image out of my mind of him telling me about two other sexual encounters (as you do – you exchange stories, don’t you, in the “getting to know you” bit?).

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