July 2, 2008 Wednesday
Today is my former college roommate's birthday. We were both 23 then. Now we're not.When I graduated from college, I began job hunting, focusing on an advertising career. I did my research and practiced my interviewing skills, but all the interviews started to become the same. All my friends from college were in North Carolina and all my friends at home had gotten married/moved away/been drafted. My life for the five previous years had centered around college, and that was done. And there was nothing promising ahead. So I was feeling quite discouraged. And broke.
Around the middle of August I had interviewed for a trainee position in the advertising department of Woolco discount stores. It was a job with little creativity and less glamor, and it was four people crammed in a small office in the back of one of the stores. And it was a 48 hour week. So I didn't give it much thought after I left.
The Sunday before Labor Day weekend, my parents went out to dinner, my siblings had all returned to college, and I was home alone to scrounge up my dinner. I found some left over chili, and I finished off a carton of ice cream. I had decided to ask my parents for some money to go back to NC to look for work. Life was more laid back there, and I knew people who'd lived there their whole lives who might have connections, etc (but mostly it was to have human contact with my peers again). But the chili and ice cream didn't go together so well, and, feeling like death, I went to bed before they got home. The next morning I still felt gross, and my father had left for work, so I postponed the request for cash. So now I was feeling ill and discouraged. Then Woolco called wanting a second interview. So I gulped down some Pepto-Bismol, put on my best (only) suit, and headed out. The short version is that I was offered the job, we agreed on a salary, and I began my advertising career the following Tuesday.
The rest of my life revolved around that decision. If not for that job, I never would have met my wife, never would have gotten my next job, never would haved moved to New Jersey, never would have had Opie or the other felines in my life, etc. And if I hadn't been feeling ill and gone to bed early, I might have gotten a commitment from my parents for cash to return to NC, which would have been encouraging, and since I wasn't that crazy about the Woolco job to begin with, had I been feeling better, I might have turned it down.
So my entire life for the past 37 years has been determined by one meal of chili and ice cream.
Watch what you eat.