Recently, I entered my wife and I into a "Couple's Best" contest where you submit a 200 word story of how you met and people vote on the best story.  I figured, I'll write up our story and we're bound to win versus all those amateurs.  At stake was a $50 mall gift certificate.

So I wrote the story and went through multiple revisions.  MANY MANY revisions.  Ran it by my wife and she made a few suggestions and I incorporated those.  Then revised it some more until I deemed it just about perfect.  It's very hard to write a touching story in 200 words or less.

We submitted the story and I sent out FaceBook emails and had my mom send out Spam emails to everyone she knew to vote for us.  The game was on.

Day One: We got a hundred votes almost overnight.  Another couple amassed two hundred or so.  Most couples had less than twenty.  We felt pretty good about our chances.  We had only just started milking our FaceBook networks.

Day Two:  My mom's super-mega-email went out and a few of us pulled away from the pack.  My wife and I collected a total of more than 200 votes.  Other couples with a chance had 333 and 290 and 240.  A young couple, whose story consisted of two very long paragraphs of poorly cobbled together grammar, built a comfortable lead overnight with a grand total of 496.

Day Three:  I eagerly checked the contest totals to find that we'd added a meager 40 or so votes.  Other couples had added to their totals also.  Then, as I scanned the contest page, I noticed that one couple, two middle-aged women, had amassed 2100 votes!  In one night!

Just like that, in the middle of this writing contest, they played the Gay Card. 

They hopped on their gay phone and called all their gay friends, and asked for all their gay votes.  And the gay votes came.

There's no rhyme or reason to it.  The story of how the couple met is nothing spectacular; it's actually quite boring:  They met at a gay game night.  Whoopee. 

As of this writing, they have 3254 votes, and 29 gay comments from gay people saying gay stuff like, "Easiest choice evah." 

These gay morons never read any of the other contestants' stories so that actually kind of irritates me.  You can't say theirs is the best story ever if you haven't read any of the others.  And "evah?"  How gay.

I could understand it if the story was spectacular or the writing was amazing.  But it's not.  Their winning has nothing to do with anything other than playing the Gay Card.

If I sound bitter, you're right.  I was never issued a Hetero Card.  Hell, I probably wouldn't know how to use it if I had it.  Can I get a Gay Card and present it upside down?

So far, we're up to 387 votes and I don't care any more.

I will say that there is one young couple giving them a run for their money.  They're at 3166.  They're a young hetero couple and their story sucks too.  They must have their Hetero Card and it doesn't have a limit. 

They got on their straight phone and called all their straight friends and told them to cast all their straight votes for them.  And the straight votes came.

Oh, and the hetero couple's writing?  Atrocious. I wrote better in first grade.

Which incidentally, is when Carmen and I met: (nice segue, huh?)

It was 1977 and for us, first grade was a time of innocence and playfulness. Carmen sat behind me and we became best friends. It says so in her "memory book."

She had long brown hair, green eyes and a face as sweet as honey. As adolescence neared, she blossomed into a gorgeous young woman, among the smartest and most talented I'd ever met.

But as middle school came and went, we slowly grew apart. High school arrived and we had classes together, but our friendship remained at an arm's length.

We graduated, and for twenty years after high school, we never once saw each other, not even during the four years we attended the same college. Our lives had taken different courses.

It is said that the people we meet early in life make an impression that lasts forever. It is true.

The summer before our 20th high school reunion, Carmen and I reconnected. One date and we knew our friendship had transcended the years, as if our paths had never diverged.

We married six months later, on New Year's Eve of 2009, and are currently redefining the cliché, "happily ever after."

Now tell me that's not the best story evah?