How Jessica & Adam Met

There are rumors that they met at a bowling alley in Poughkeepsie, New York, over a cup of herbal tea arranged by mutual friends at a café in Green Bay, Wisconsin, or even something as outrageous as colliding in a water skiing catastrophe on Lake Tahoe (which would not have been a catastrophe at all, if it was the reason they met and would eventually get married on October 25th, 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona)…. But those rumors are false. Here’s how it really happened:

In the spring of 2007, Jessica had taken an apprenticeship at Les Larmes, an onion farm in the south of France near Marseille. The salt in the sea air, they say, makes for exceptional pearl onions, and Jessica was intrigued.

In the meantime, Adam was riding west through Europe on an ancient moped he had inherited from a cousin, who had traded up for a real car. Adam was in that phase of his life where he wore a scarf no matter what the weather, and read books in Italian even though he had only taken French in high school. In Stuttgart, Adam bought a sausage from a hunchbacked vendor, and marveled at the flavor of the grilled onion topping. He asked the vendor his secret, and the hunchback replied, “Les Larmes.”

Jessica was doing exceptionally well in her botanical training, but found it odd that her co-workers only clocked in at night. Even though she liked the freedom of being the only one on the dayshift, she had suspicions that there was more to the secret of the delectable Les Larmes onions than just the sea air.

Nearing dusk on June 29th, 2007, Adam pulled his moped onto the grounds of Les Larmes, and not a soul was in sight. He sat down at a picnic table had just bitten into an onion when he saw the most beautiful girl he had ever come across running through the onion fields toward him. She was yelling something, but he was transfixed, unable even to chew the delicious onion in his mouth.

“Vampires!” Jessica yelled. “All of these onion farmers are vampires!” She skidded to a halt in front of the boy wearing a scarf at the picnic table.
“So that’s their secret,” the boy said, savoring the onion.
“Who knew?” said Jessica.
“I’m Adam,” he said.
“Hi,” she said.
It was love at first sight.
“Vampires, eh?” asked Adam.
“They’re about to wake up and suck our blood!” said Jessica.
“Well, an eternity on an onion farm with you wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Take off that stupid scarf and get us out of here!”
Jessica and Adam rode off into the sunset on the moped and never looked back.

And that’s how they met.