DC

Friday Fictioneers — Comics and Candy

Fandango31 Comments

My allowance was $1.00 a week to do with as I pleased. What pleased me was to hop on my bicycle every Saturday and ride to the Wheaton Comics and Candy store.

Five cents went to buy bubble gum baseball cards, a pack of seven baseball cards with a flat, square piece of bubble gum inside. Then, if there were any new comic book editions from DC or Marvel, I’d buy a bunch of them at ten cents each.

I’d then buy two Chunky chocolate candies at a nickel each. Mmm, Chunky. What a chunk of chocolate.

(97 words)

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers prompt. Photo credit: Roger Bultot.

WDP — Risky Business

Fandango7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
View all responses

I had a decent job, for decent pay, at a decent company, and I liked what I was doing. I’d been there for almost ten years and I was not looking for a change.

Then, out of the blue, I got a call from a headhunter — an executive recruiter is what he called himself. He wanted to talk with me about “an exciting opportunity.” I wasn’t playing hard to get, but as I said, I wasn’t looking for a career change, so I told him I wasn’t interested.

He said, “Let me overnight some information to you. Take a look, read it over, and I’ll call you the day after tomorrow.”

I said, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” The next day I received a package that contained information about a small, relatively new start-up technology company in the same field I was in, health benefits administration. The company was looking for someone who could lead the design and development of automated health benefits claims adjudication systems. The compensation was good. The benefits were good. And the offer included equity (i.e., stock) in a privately held entity.

I had a few concerns, though. (1) We lived in the Washington, DC area and the job was in Manhattan, so we’d need to relocate. (2) My wife was pregnant. (3) Going to work at a small, start-up company was risky business.

My wife and I talked about the opportunity, the risk, the rewards, and the timing. She said it was my decision to make. I met with the headhunter to review some details. The owner of the small company and two of his associates flew to DC to meet with me.

Long story short, I took the risk of leaving a decent job at a well-established company that I’d been with for a decade, and I moved from DC to a Jersey suburb of Manhattan with my pregnant wife for a job with an entrepreneurial technology start-up.

Fortunately, as I look back at that risky decision, I have no regrets at all.

Sadje’s Sunday Poser — Literally or Figuratively

Fandango8 Comments

When I first saw Sadje’s Sunday Poser, I took the question quite literally, where “how far” was referring to distance.

After graduating from college and returning from active duty in the army, I was living in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC and working for a company in the city. Many of the employees of the company also lived in the suburbs. Some, like me, in Maryland, and others in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

I was single back then and a lot of cute young girls worked at this company. And for some reason, a number of them seemed to be attracted to me. However, working in DC and living in Maryland, I made the conscious decision to not get involved with any of those nubile young ladies who lived in Northern Virginia. All other things being equal, I labeled them to be “geographically undesirable.” Hence, traveling across the Potomac River into Northern Virginia was, in terms of love, a bridge too far.

But then I reread Sadje’s question and realized that she might be posing that question figuratively, as in is there anything I wouldn’t do for a loved one. To that question, I will quote a line from Meat Loaf’s song:

I would do anything for love
But I won't do that
No I won't do that