love on the company bus

The old Hank Williams song Please Help Me I'm Falling in Love with You both amuses and embarrasses Jordan because it reminds her of the time when she was falling in love with a man who did belong to another - and actually fell flat on her face in front of him to prove it.

"It served me right I suppose," laughs Jordan. "If I hadn't made such a fool of myself in front of him who knows how my silly crush might have ended."

"David and I caught the same company bus to work every day. I never noticed him at first but after a few months I couldn't keep my eyes off him. He got on a few stops after I did and always took the seat across the aisle from mine."

"The first thing I noticed about David was his wedding ring," says Jordan. "I always check for a wedding ring when I meet a new guy. It doesn't always protect me from married men on the prowl - but it's something I always do."

"I can't remember who spoke first - probably me - but after a few weeks of smiling at each other, saying good morning seemed like a natural thing to do."

"From smiles and good mornings we soon started to chat across the aisle from each other," explain Jordan. "By the time David and I caught the bus all the window seats were taken so all of our chat was conducted across the aisle."

"We talked about our jobs -- he was a manager on the second floor from me -- and where we lived and what we liked doing at the weekends," reminisces Jordan, "and it wasn't long before I really looked forward to my morning bus ride with him."

"I never saw him at work or on the way home -- he caught a later bus home than I did -- so our morning chats were really special."

"When I started getting up a half an hour earlier to make myself look prettier than ever I realized I had a problem. I was falling in love with him. And I was humming the Hank Williams song too!'

'He never tried to hide the fact that he had a wife and two children," explains Jordan. "But that never stopped him from flirting with me."

"David wasn't a glamour boy. Far from it. He was just the funniest man I had ever met and on wet and cold mornings he brought sunshine into my life."

"I don't know what the other passengers thought of us chatting and flirting together and at the time I didn't care," says Jordan.

"But all of this changed one morning when I was paying too much attention to what David was talking about and not enough attention to the road."

"The bus makes several sharp turns along the route and on one of them I had taken my hand off the safety bar to look at a magazine David was showing me. The next thing I knew I was flung out of my seat and was lying face flat in the aisle with my nose almost stuck in David's shoes."

"I was hurt and embarrassed and rather than doing the gentlemanly thing and helping me up David just sat there laughing at me, and everyone on the bus laughed along with him."

"That was it as far as my silly crush on David went."

"From that day on I caught an earlier bus and never saw David again," says Jordan, "and I thanked my lucky stars I didn't work directly with him."