posted on February 28, 2023 by Mariah Ankenman

Meet-cute-Disasters

Romance readers love a good meet-cute. I bet most readers can recite their favorite meet-cute from memory. Me? I like to write what I call meet-disasters. Take that first moment of the love interests meeting and dial up the awkward. For example, in The Wedding Dilemma, the couple met when he had to rescue her from a plaster body-cast she was naked under. The Dating Dilemma involved a mistaken identity meeting where the heroine thought the hero was a strip-o-gram for her birthday (spoiler: he wasn’t). While in The Firefighter’s Dilemma, they’re friends, so there’s no meet-disaster, there’s plenty of disaster and awkward moments for these two forced proximity firefighters.

Why do I love putting my characters in such awkward situations? Maybe because I am awkward. Allow me to paint you a picture:

Way back before my spouse and I had kids, we lived in a small apartment and one day our bathroom sink backed up. I’m talking nasty, brown sludge water that no amount of Drano could fix. We called our landlord, and he promised to send someone over. A day or so later, there was a knock on the door and two plumbers were standing there with their toolboxes, ready to check out the sink. Grateful, I let them in and brought them to the bedroom bathroom where the plug was.

Now here, dear reader, is where the story takes a turn. As the plumbers were fixing the sink, I was in the other room completing the tasks I had to do on my day off of work. Mostly laundry and dishes, cleaning up (which used to be so much faster and easier but then I had kids, lol). After about half an hour, the plumbers came out of the bathroom and mumbled that the sink was fixed, and they’ll bill the landlord. Both men’s faces were bright red, and they refused to look at me. Now I’m worried that they found something so disgusting in the sink they can’t even tell me because it’s too gross. At the time, my hair was super long, so I just figured they pulled a hair ball the size of a cat out of there.

Oh, reader….if only.

Once the men left, I went into the bathroom to inspect my working sink, and that’s when I saw it.

I had been cleaning all day and let’s just say I had cleaned some…*adult* items and left them on the counter to dry in the bathroom. As one does with those types of things. Somehow, I forgot they were there, and the plumbers went into my bathroom and fixed my sink with those items just inches from where they were working! I have never been more mortified in my entire life. At once I realized why they were so embarrassed and couldn’t look me in the eye (thank goodness they weren’t creepy about it, that would have been so much worse).

When my spouse got home, we had a good laugh about it. Bless those plumbers for being so discreet. I hope they had a good story to tell their friends and family and I am very glad I never had to see either of them again, but if I were to put that incident into a story it would totally be a Mariah Ankenman meet-cute-disaster.

Have you ever had an embarrassing moment like this? Please let me know I’m not alone in the awkward. And if you love laugh-out-loud, slightly awkward stories with plenty of heat, be sure to check out The Firefighter’s Dilemma.

Mariah Ankenman

Mariah Ankenman

Bestselling author Mariah Ankenman lives in the beautiful Rocky Mountains with her two rambunctious daughters and loving husband who provides ample inspiration for her heart-stopping heroes. Her books have been nominated for the prestigious RWA Golden Heart and CRW Stiletto awards. Whether she's writing hometown heroes or sexy supernaturals, Mariah loves to lose herself in a world of words. Her favorite thing about writing is when she can make someone's day a little brighter with one of her books.

http://mariahankenman.com/

2 thoughts on “Meet-cute-Disasters”

  1. Amber says:

    I’m not sure I can top that!
    Thankfully I have a very handy husband but thanks for the chuckle 😁

  2. Mariah Ankenman says:

    Thanks for having me on today to share my embarrassment with all😂

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