LYNDSAY: “In 1998, I was in my third year at Montclair
State University, studying biology, and Mike was working in
IT at Hoffman-Laroche. He worked a lot from his apartment above Montclair Shipping Plus on Valley Road, across
the street from the Upper Montclair Starbucks where I
worked. He was the first customer there every morning;
in fact, he was usually knocking on the door before we
opened at 6 a.m. None of us liked him. He was, and still is,
not a pleasant person before having coffee. He never said
please or thank you, just ‘venti black.’ He became known
to the staff as The Venti Bastard.
“Mike could see from his window when I came outside
to take a break, and he started joining me for a coffee or
sandwich. He was pretty persistent in courting me, but I
had zero interest – I was dating someone else at the time
and wondered why this jerk couldn’t take the hint.
Gradually, though, his persistence got through, and we
started sitting together on the wall at the nearby Bank of
America. My co-workers said ‘What are you doing?’, but
we were getting to know
each other at the same
time that my relationship
was falling apart. We did
a lot of walking around
Upper Montclair, through
the residential streets to The
Cheese Shop [now Sandwich
Theory], and ending up at
Anderson Park. After I left
Starbucks, I worked at Frederic
Goodman and Chase Bank down
the same block. He had plenty of
chances to see me around town.
“Mike is very protective of me, and that makes me
swoon. We’ve been married since 2003, and we have a
beautiful two-year-old daughter named Aryanna. I joke
about dating my ‘stalker,’ but Mike just smiles and says
‘I knew you were the one for me.’” ■
LYNDSAY
&
MIKE
SPRING 2016
MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE
43