The first time I met the dad of the woman I would eventually marry was when I flew out to have Christmas with them. He was a big-shot lawyer, and I was a little scared of the guy. Not gonna lie.

I thought I gotta bring him a gift. But what? I had very little money, having just graduated. What could I get lawyer dad that wouldn’t seem tacky? I went to a book shop and got around to the true crime section. He’s a lawyer right? Maybe he likes true crime? So I read a few back covers and found one that looked sort of interesting. It was about a murder on a college campus, but looked like the investigation had lots of twists and turns with a big trial at the end? Would he like it?

Anyway, I meet him and give him the book and he sort of tosses it aside and grills me, as expected. I kind of shrank in the chair, but my to-be-wife and her siblings said I did okay.

Now fast-forward several weeks. I’m back home and get an email from her dad. Oh boy! What did I do? But he’s like, “I just finished the book. It was set at the college where I got my law degree. I even knew one of the profs who’s a character in it! How did you know?!?” I didn’t. “It was so nostalgic. The author mentioned landmarks, some of which aren’t even around anymore. But I remember. That was the best book I’ve read in years! I couldn’t put it down!”

We were all good after that.

Gettig treatment for CPTSD so I could stop the trauma cycle. It is hard work, but so worth it.

Unintentionally playing the housing market.

Using some first time home buyer incentives about a decade ago, I was able to buy a house on my own. I had to pay mortgage insurance, but it still wasn’t too bad. Cheaper than renting a two bedroom apartment. Five or six years later, my city keeps popping up on Most Affordable Cities lists and the real estate turns into a feeding frenzy.

When the market was at its peak, I listed my house for sale for about 70% more than I paid for it. I had an offer for it at 10k over asking and they’d buy the house sight-unseen within three days of it hitting the market.

Now, this was clearly a buyer’s market so you’d think selling was easy but buying would be a nightmare right? Well, you’d be right and it took 10 months of living with my parents and a shit ton of getting outbid on houses, but I was able to get into a slightly bigger house by putting half of the value down at closing for a house that was brand new, on a bigger lot of land and closer to my family, and I was able to pay off my car loan, resulting in lower monthly payments overall for a house much better suited to my lifestyle. Since moving in two years ago, it’s already appreciated another 15%, not that I’m moving out any time soon!

I was invited to give a speech to all new hires to get them fired up, and said sure. I think I was picked because I was a known weirdo; not that they were expecting great things out of the speech but more along the lines of “well it definitely won’t be boring.” It was a rowdy company and someone threw a roll of paper towels at me basically right when I walked out. I caught the roll in the air with both hands, held it for a moment, and put it on the table next to me and started in with my speech. I honestly couldn’t tell you most of what I said. I didn’t have any particular plan or preparation beyond the first few sentences. I mostly talked about teamwork and dumb stuff I had done and what I’d learned, and everyone fucking loved it and little turns of phrase from the speech entered into the company vernacular for a little while. I have no idea where it all came from; I had no particular public speaking experience, but I had a blast with it. Someone told me it was like a sermon.

Another one: I got an interview with a FAANG company back in their heyday, and studied my absolute ass off for the interview. I wrote out solutions to programming problems on paper, then once I was satisfied, I typed them into the computer and saw how they ran and identified problems with them, then once I was pretty practiced and comfortable with that, I bought a whiteboard and started doing the same on the whiteboard, on my own or in real time and explaining the problems to my girlfriend. (I was on a plane doing the on-paper version and typing solutions into the computer, and the guy sitting next to me asked about what I was doing and I explained, and he offered me a job.) I smoked the interview and they offered me a job and a bunch of money, which I actually turned down for complex reasons, which confused everybody.

What the fuck why are they both work related… I have others, some of which I wouldn’t want to share on Lemmy, but it bothers me a little bit that the ones that came right immediately to mind were of that nature. Counterbalancing ones:

Sat on an airplane next to a massage lady who brought her own alcohol on the plane and she talked with me while drinking quite a lot from her bottle and then once she was drunk she gave me a long massage. She invited me to lunch with her, but she was married so I decided against it.

My friend got himself confused driving at night and was in a wrong lane head-on with another car and I calmly told him he should shift to the right, and he did, and he told me after that me being very relaxed about it helped him to react smoothly and calmly and not freak out or do anything that would delay us not dying.

Gave someone else’s ID to a cop and then when he looked at it and looked back at me and said “That ain’t you!” I convinced him that it actually was.

Well, I guessed the Wordle first try today, so…

Probably the friends I’ve made since I’ll never be that lucky again under normal circumstances.

A teacher once publicly screamed at me that I was a liar at the beginning of the year. However at the end of the year the class nominated me student/classmate of the year and teacher was forced to publicly revere me when she had to defend the vote against the other teachers and their nominees.

Sometimes success is the best revenge

Lawsuit

giant basket of quilting supplies and tools won in a raffle.

Freedom from the alienating domestic abuser to finally introduce the kid and the old man, right before the big C finished its job.