If you had told me 40 years ago I’d be with an ex-Mormon with 4 children, I would have been excited. But I would have tried - very hard - to hide my excitement as I casually suggested a wager against that scenario. You never want to appear to too excited to make a bet you are nearly certain of winning so you try to control your emotions until the bet is consummated. I'd have offered whatever odds you thought reasonable. 100 to 1? Sure. I would have bet big too, because I like a flutter now and again when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor. Because I have no game, she stalked me. She was a pretty good stalker for an ex-Mormon without, I presume, much stalking experience and now I'm with that ex-Mormon with 4 kids. Didn't expect that detour.
Some of the biggest detours in life have nothing to do with you. Like this one. My dad went to an interview with the MITRE Corporation down in DC when we were living in Florham Park, NJ in the late 60's. The interview went swimmingly and then they went to lunch. He knew he was going to get an offer, the job was his. Back in the 60's, it was okay to have a tipple along with whatever you were noshing on and they all had something to drink at the restaurant. My dad gave one of the interviewers a ride back to the workplace in his rental car and on the way back, he kicked something underneath the drivers seat. He picked it up, and it was an empty bottle of gin. As he was holding the bottle by the neck, he looked at his potential boss and said, "What the hell is this?" The interviewer looked at the bottle, looked at my dad, raised his eyebrows and then looked straight ahead. And just like that, the job was not his. I talked to my dad the other day and asked him about this, he said if he was the hiring manager, he would have made the same decision. And to whoever drank that bottle of gin, left it in the rental car and to whatever employee that didn't clean the car I say thank you.
That's right, my dad didn't get that job and we didn't end up moving to the DC area. He moved our family back to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands a few years later. And just like that, my trajectory was changed. My life has taken all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, some of them wonderful and serendipitous, some of them tragic. But here's a shout out to my Mom and Dad who had the courage to move to Kwajalein with two small kids in 1964 for the first time and thanks to Gwyne for stalking me...on Kwajalein.
Some of the biggest detours in life have nothing to do with you. Like this one. My dad went to an interview with the MITRE Corporation down in DC when we were living in Florham Park, NJ in the late 60's. The interview went swimmingly and then they went to lunch. He knew he was going to get an offer, the job was his. Back in the 60's, it was okay to have a tipple along with whatever you were noshing on and they all had something to drink at the restaurant. My dad gave one of the interviewers a ride back to the workplace in his rental car and on the way back, he kicked something underneath the drivers seat. He picked it up, and it was an empty bottle of gin. As he was holding the bottle by the neck, he looked at his potential boss and said, "What the hell is this?" The interviewer looked at the bottle, looked at my dad, raised his eyebrows and then looked straight ahead. And just like that, the job was not his. I talked to my dad the other day and asked him about this, he said if he was the hiring manager, he would have made the same decision. And to whoever drank that bottle of gin, left it in the rental car and to whatever employee that didn't clean the car I say thank you.
That's right, my dad didn't get that job and we didn't end up moving to the DC area. He moved our family back to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands a few years later. And just like that, my trajectory was changed. My life has taken all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, some of them wonderful and serendipitous, some of them tragic. But here's a shout out to my Mom and Dad who had the courage to move to Kwajalein with two small kids in 1964 for the first time and thanks to Gwyne for stalking me...on Kwajalein.
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