How I met and had a fling with a neglected married woman, Kay and I met by accident. She and her husband owned a small company which profits from the bounty of foodstuffs created in the Hudson Valley and I was a 2nd year culinary student who had some down time and ventured outside of the city for this small food expo that promised various ciders, cheeses, breads and other assorted food products given away for free after a small admission fee.
Since I was I broke, in my mid-20s, and paying my way through culinary school, the offer of quality all-you-can-eat food samples for a small admission fee and the chance to get out of the city for a day during a balmy, sunny NY autumn day was too good of an offer to pass up. I had a traveling companion in my buddy, Drew, and we hopped on the train and took the short journey north.
The food expo itself was…quaint. Amish pickles and preserves were mixed in cheeses from local creameries, along with various other non-food related businesses trying to hock whatever product they were making, but the real score at this event turned out to be the booze. Drinking in the city is expensive and daily alcohol consumption in my mid-20s was something of a foregone conclusion so I usually drank cheap, shitty beer at home to save money. But here, we were to find out, we could sample all the whiskeys and ciders we wanted for a small additional up front fee.
Drew and I were slightly buzzed as we shoved bread and cheese into our faces when a very attractive woman, who looked to be in her late 30s or early 40s, sat down at a table a few feet from us. We both glanced at her casually and continued our drunken banter. Drew and I never were good at filtering what we said in front of each other. Political correctness and decorum were things we saved for job interviews and conversations with girlfriends’ parents. They weren’t high on our priority list as we sipped bourbon and made dick jokes in public, and it wasn’t long before our antics of joke telling, laughing with mouthfuls of food, and general childishness had the attractive woman at the table a few feet away noticeably chuckling at our shameless immaturity.
I struck up a conversation and a few minutes later, I found out her name was Kay and she was here today on business. I even was handed the official business card with her name and company logo on it. We gave her the quick update on what us here today and apologized for our behavior, but she laughed it off and made it clear she wasn’t offended.
My buddy and I excused ourselves as we had finished our snacks and bourbon and needed to acquire more sustenance. When we returned to our table, Kay had left and I thought nothing of it as we continued to enjoy our inexpensive food samples…until we started making our way through the makeshift parking lot back to the train station. I literally bumped into her again. No, seriously, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking (damn you, whiskey!) and walked right into her causing her petite frame to stumble backwards into a car.