Tommy Condon was working on Wall Street when he overheard his co-workers talking:

Larry: I want to go out with Sara but she’ll only go if her cousin comes too. Wanna go?

Gene: Does she go to bed?

Larry: No.

Gene: Nah, not interested.

Larry, looking around the room: Tommy, you wanna go?

Where Gene’s mind was in the gutter and only wanted a girl who would sleep with him, Tommy had a completely different thought process:

Well, I was planning on going on my annual trip to the Walt Whitman mall on Long Island to buy Christmas gifts for my family, so I’ll be out there anyway… “Sure, I’ll go.”

And that’s how my parents met.

We’ve asked my Dad, ‘So if you were planning on going Christmas shopping a week before or a week later, would you have turned Larry down?’

The answer is yes.

It’s a little jarring to know that my entire existence relied on my father never deviating from his schedule… and also wasn’t a perv like Gene.

They will be married for 56 years in May.