Meeting The Girl

Grad school was awesome. I only had a few classes each week, and they were always at night. This meant I had all day to train, and smoke. Smoke and train. I lived in my grandfathers place on my own all summer while he was in Wisconsin. When he came back down, I just packed up everything that I would need to keep me busy all day (and out of the house) knowing that he went to bed at exactly 10p.m. every night. To earn some extra money, I got a job teaching tennis at a Jewish Community Center in Boca Raton. I had taught tennis for years, so this was no problem. I would get high, put on my sunglasses and make sure everyone had fun on the tennis court. I got to use the gym and the pool for free. It worked out great.

The last part of my grad school program was an internship. I found a company that was based in Boca Raton, just ½ an hour away from where I was. They put on triathlons and running races all summer throughout the Southeast. When I went to interview for the job, it turned out the guy that owned the company, as well as the guy that I was interviewing with, were both originally from Wisconsin. Here again, the fact that I actually participated in triathlons and running races helped me a lot. I got the job right away. It turned out that I was the only guy on the crew that had ever done any racing, which made my input that much more helpful. I was also pretty quick to learn the names of the athletes, so I was usually the guy on the microphone announcing while the event went on.

On one of our stops in Siesta Key, FL, I had been given security duty a couple of days before the event. This meant I had to hang out where all of our signs and bike racks were until 2 a.m. making sure nobody ran off with our stuff. It worked out well because that meant the next day while everyone else had to keep working on set-up, I got to sleep in and hang out by the pool.

When I finally woke up, I saw a couple of girls that I had recognized from an earlier race. I introduced myself and made some small talk. It was really hot, so I asked them if they needed anything to drink from the supermarket. They both said no, but I decided to bring them back some large waters anyways. It turns out one of these girls was going to become my wife.

Her name was Angie. She had been competing in the series all summer. Her friend Rachel never raced, but joined her once in awhile. Other times her Dad was with her. We had become friends over the next couple months, but that was it.

Finally, my internship was coming to an end. On my last day in the office, I needed something to do. I decided to call a couple of the athletes and see if they had any suggestions for how we could improve the next year. I decided to give Angie a call.

When I called the number from her registration forms, I got an answering machine with her Dad’s voice on it. I decided to leave a message.

“Hi. This is Chuck from the triathlon series. I’m just calling some of our athletes to get some feedback for next year. If you get this message, feel free to give me a call at xxx-xxx-xxxx.”

About an hour before I was leaving the office, for the last time, the phone rang. It was Angie. We talked for an hour about all sorts of stuff. It was time for me to go. I said that I really enjoyed getting to talk to her. I’m heading up to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving weekend, but maybe when I get back we could get together sometime?”

“That sounds great. Give me a call when you get back.”