Part I. Setting the Stage

I realized that this story had to begin a little bit before Tracie, to sort of ‘set the stage’ if you will. I also realize that any story like this has to begin with once upon a time.
Once upon a time, after I got back from my mission and moved to Utah, I started dating Ugly. (I call her Ugly for anonymity’s sake, and because it wasn’t really true. If I wanted be brutally honest, I would have called her Boring or Smelly.)
So, Boring & I dated for a few months, I was a returned missionary and thought we should maybe consider getting married, as most returned missionaries think when they first start dating their Boring, even if they’re settling. Ugly was moving for the summer back to her hometown of Moses Lake, WA, but I’ll call it Loserville, for the sake of anonymity. I didn’t want to propose, per se, but I wanted to know if she was serious, as I didn’t think Boring was worth waiting for if she didn’t want to date me. Well, long boring story short, Ugly & Austin decided not to keep going, and so I was (not understandably) crushed. It took me a few months to get over it, I dated a dull Hungarian girl I’ll call Zsa Zsa (partly cuz I don’t remember her real name, and partially because I’ve always wanted to call someone Zsa Zsa). I dated a nice girl who was about 20 years older than me (ok, she was 5 years older. But still.) I don’t remember her name either. So I’ll call her Barbara Ann. No, Rhonda. There was a NCMO in there or 2, and someone who pursued ME, asked ME out first, and then told ME she wasn’t ready for a relationship. I learned later she was seeing a friend of mine. We’ll call that girl Whorianne.
Well, with these misadventures with Utah girls, I understandably gave up and eventually decided I was through with girls.
Being LDS, gayness wasn’t top on my list (plus I really don’t like boys that way) so celibacy seemed all fine and good. I mean I’d been doing it religiously for about 22 years at the time, so I kept practicing it, hoping I’d get better. Around this time, I quit my job (a pattern in my life over the next few years. But we’re not talking about that. This is the Tracie & Austin story, not the Austin’s crappy jobs story. That’s for another day.) A friend of mine from Texas, we’ll call Her Erin Weber, because that’s her real name, told me her company was hiring. So, I rode my bike to Lindon and interviewed at iArchives. Because I’m shy at first and the job was boring, (there were also a lot of annoying yappy girls there) I often just listened to books on CD or CDs while I worked. As I said, I had given up on girls and didn’t really want to talk. Well, my wonderful grandparents decided to give me a car, which I was SO grateful for (we’ll call them grandma & grandpa) and with their generosity, I bought my Neon. They had me pay some of the money for my car as well, which I was grateful for, because that way I appreciated their gift and my car more. Well, I started working more hours to pay the car off, and guess who worked nights there? Carolina & Angie! Oh, and some girl named Tracie.