Interview

I agreed to be interviewed by her indoors, who asked me the following five questions.

1. How and when did you meet your partner?
I met Sweet Tea in college. We were both late learners. Me because I just hate school and could only stand it for short periods at a time. ST because she dropped out of school to have her kiddies and move from NJ to CA.

After her divorce she knew she couldn’t raise her kiddies without an education so she went back to school. Three kids (one from her husband’s first marriage) and a full time menial job at a bank and she refused to give up. She started college on a math scholarship to Rutgers, changed her major to chemistry because of ass hole first husban; dropper out a year later to marry and move because he had graduated.

As for me, a friend at work and I were talking one day about me ever getting married again. It wasn’t likely because I had no desire to be married. So that night at school I was thinking about that conversation when a cute lady walked up to the teacher to give him some papers and I though to myself, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I ended up marring her?”

So, after class we were both in the student union waiting for the next class to start when we both walked up to a third student we both knew and started talking. We three, and a couple of others, became a team and met before and between classes until I got fed up with school again and dropped out. (I eventually graduated from another college, but went back and got my masters from this school. ST, Marni and I are all alumni.) But I stopped by one night to pick up some stuff from another friend and ST was there. We started talking, I ask for her number and we started dating. Five years late we were married. When I ask her to marry me, I gave her a ring and ask her to be my tax deduction. She said okay and we were married on Decembe 31st – so I could claim married with two dependents on the tax form. She has been my best tax deduction ever since.

2. What is your idea of a good night out?
A good dinner and a movie with ST. Or any night with the grandkids.

3. What are your hobbies?
Reading, NASCAR, history and the grandkids.

4. What would be your ideal/dream vacation?
An ALL EXPENSE PAID cruise around the world visiting all the historical places I have read about all my like.

5. Tell us about the worst job you have ever had.
I’ve neve had a “worst job.” There have always been good things about every place I have worked. The one that I would not like to go back to, though, is when I worked for a blow-mold injection company making plastic bottles. I had to work the third shift and I hated that.

I enjoyed knowing most of the people I worked with, though. But it was at a down time in my life, and I had lost all my self-esteem. But the best thing that ever happened to me was getting my hand caught in a machine. I was line chief and was helping one of my men who had two machines down for cleaning at one time. A wire that was under the machine had corroded through and broke causing the mold to close on my hand while I was cleaning the head, braking several bones and causing me to be out of work for three weeks.

During that time I had nothing to do but think about where I was in my life. I didn’t like where I was so I started looking around. I found an entry level job with this company and took a pay cut to take the job. Within a year I was a supervisor over twenty women (something I will never do again.) But it was from there that I got my act together, finished college and went on to meet ST and accomplish more that I ever thought I could.

But if it wasn’t for that lousy third shift job there is no telling how I would have ended up. I was on my way to being a drunk and probably being killed by a jealous husband – another byproduct of the company.

Was all the TMI for you? I can ramble on if given the chance. You can wake up now. HEY! I said you can wake up now. Go on. Get out ‘till next time.