adorable

a woman came into the bank and looked around uncertainly for a few moments before i greeted her. "yes, hi," she responded, smiling shyly. "can you notarize something?"

of course i can notarize something; i'm only engaged in a winner-takes-all-the-cookies contest with my coworkers on who can do the most notarizing. she sat down at my desk and opened her manilla folder. inside was a sheet of pink paper with one line of typed words at the very top. i glanced at it, then stopped and reread it slowly.

it said, "i, christine smith, do solemnly swear to love john jones forever."

"he said he wouldn't believe it until he saw it in writing," christine smith explained. i hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, wondering if the notary people could take my stamp away due to notarizing a clearly non-official document. then, decisively, i signed my name and pressed my stamp firmly onto the paper right after christine carefully penned in her signature. "only because it's valentine's day," i told christine. "otherwise, i would have had to send you on your way. the notary folks are very strict about this kind of thing."

i'm such a sucker for kids in love. i hope christine smith and john jones don't ever go through a divorce; bringing that notarized testimonial into a courtroom would probably bode not-so-well for christine "clever valentine" smith.