Just in time for Valentine's Day, in a theatre review, I had a meet cute with "meet cute," that ubiquitous jargon term of screenwriters pitching their wares to producers.

Actually, I'm lying...I first encountered the term about ten years ago when producing a play called "Who's Hot, Who's Not," by Sherwood Kiraly, adapted from his book by the same name.

"Meet cute" is discussed by two of the characters in the play who, as I vaguely recall, have just met cute. This play, by the way, is about the editor of a gossip magazine by the same title, whose only joy on the job is having secured his publisher's permission to write a last page column called "Where Are They Now?" about people who once were hot, like his own personal favorite, Clu Gulager. His boss can't stand the column, because who in the hell cares about "has beens" in his business? One of the highlights of the play takes place when the publisher challenges the editor to a rush-hour race to get to work in L.A. from the town they both live in, Laguna Beach, and even spots him half an hour. The publisher wins by picking up a homeless person, enabling him to drive in the car pool lanes past the rest of the traffic.

Wikipedia has an entire entry devoted to "meet cute" and I picked up the title of this post from another blogger's entry on the subject--now, I'll never be able to think of "romantic comedies" as anything but "rom-coms," I'm afraid.

Interestingly, Roger Ebert is known to have popularized the term and, perhaps, even coined it.

I suppose that, in honor of Valentine's Day, it's also entirely appropriate for me to mention that my wife and I met cute--and we've have a long, happy marriage.

If that ain't a "rom-com," what is?