Fate, Epiphanies & Boats

Opps! Opps!

Last week I posted that Kimmy had won the prize on my "Call" blog. Well, duh, I goofed. It wasn't Kimmy. It was Kammy. So . . . Kammy, if you are out there. Please email me, through my website address, and give me your snail mail so I can get your prize to you.

Crime Scene Christie



I’m sitting here wondering what I should blog about, and leave it to my husband to save the day. Poor guy, he doesn’t ask to star in so many of my blogs, but somehow he manages to always get there by just being himself. And if he isn’t DOING something blog-worthy, he’s reminding me of something he DID that was blog worthy.


This time, he simply walked in and asked one question, “Hey, you want to take the day off and let’s take the boat out and do some fishing?”


Ah-ha! Like magic, my mind shuffles through my memory bank and finds the perfect blog. A blog about fate, about epiphanies. About . . . boats. If you are like me, you probably don’t know much about boats, but I’ll bet you guys know a thing or two about fate and epiphanies, right?


Now, this blog-worthy situation goes back 16 years. I was flying back from a writer’s conference. I walk out of the plane, looking for hubby and son. (This was when they could meet you at the gate.) They are always there, on time. Hey, they love me. But this time, there are not there. Did they decide to replace me while I was gone?


Thirty minutes pass before a very hurried, very ragged, dressed in old clothes, and smelling like sun screen, hubby and four-year-old son appear running down the airport toward my gate. Hubby gives me a guilty greeting. Son shifts nervously from one foot to the other. The foot shifting is a sign of one of two things. He’s gotta pee, or he’s got a secret and he’s just dying to tell it.


I look from Hubby’s guilty expression to son. “Stevie, do you need to go to the bathroom?”


He shifts back and forth. “No.” He glances at his dad, looks as if he’s gonna burst if he doesn’t spill the beans. Okay, now I start worrying. Then son blurted it out. “Daddy and I bought a boat.”


I relaxed a little knowing I hadn’t been replaced, then it hit me, and I eyed my hubby. “You mean a toy boat, right? Plastic?”


Son shook his head. “Nope. A real boat. A big, really big boat.”


I looked back at hubby. I totally got the guilty expression then. Remember, hubby’s cheap, right? Well, hubby had long since implemented a household rule. One never made a purchase over $200 without first speaking to the other. This rule was etched in stone.


And something told me this big, really big boat, might have run a bit more than $200. Jeepers, that really big boat probably ran about the same amount of the living room suite I’d been wanting to buy, but hubby had suggested we wait until we pay off a few more bills. Hmm…


Hubby cleared his throat. “I can explain.”


“I’ll just bet you can,” I said. “And I’ll give you the chance to do that right after I buy my new living room suite.”


He flinched, and I knew it was because he was already trying to figure out how much this little bit of fate was going to cost him. Yup, he knew that new living room furniture was as good as mine.


As we headed to baggage claim, hubby started explaining, desperately trying to get out of sleeping on the sofa—especially since that sofa had about two springs that if sat on just right, could perform a colonoscopy .


Hubby continued, “I was doing my morning chores, thinking it was the perfect weather to be out on the water. I opened the paper and darn if I’m not in the want ads and right there is an ad for a johnboat. Then I turned the page and ended up on the obituary section. And I saw it . . . Ted Smith—the same Ted Smith I went to school with. And right there, sitting on the throne,” (yup, that was his morning chore) “I had an epiphany. It was a sign and I knew it.”


He paused. “Aren’t you going to ask me what kind of sign?”


I looked at him. “Sure I am, but I’m still trying to figure out if I want to go with the paisley material for the sofa or the solid material.”


He blinked and continued. “What the sign meant is that I had to start living life before it was too late. I had to buy that boat.”


Now, I’ll admit that it was a good story, and convincing since I’m a big believer in fate and all. But it was not good enough to prevent me from getting a new living room suite. And I was leaning toward the paisley material.


Now, the story doesn’t end with the new paisley sofa, with the new set of chairs and coffee table. Oh, no, it gets much better. You see, two days later, hubby got a call from another old school buddy. Did he know poor Ted Smith had passed? I heard hubby saying that yep, he’d seen the obituaries. Then I heard hubby say… “No, you’re kidding. No!”


He hung up and just stared at me. “What?” I asked.


He turned white. “Uhh, I just found out what Ted died of.”


“And?”


He turned even whiter. “Uh, a . . .a boating accident.”


Okay, now no disrespect to Ted, but I couldn’t help laughing. And then I wrote that up and sent in it in to Reader’s Digest. And they paid me $400 for that little story. Hubby still insisted that it had been fate and the $400 dollars went to help pay for the boat. Of course, I insisted that it helped pay for the living room suite.


So . . . was it fate? Have you guys ever had an epiphany? Ever got a nice piece of furniture, or gift, because your hubby messed up? If so, share. I’d love to hear about it.


Crime Scene Christie