There’s an intentionally idiotic contest I have with a colleague of mine who works in my office. It began when I started to amass decorative items on my desktop. Some of them are from my kids, such as a retractable keyboard brush that says “#1 Dad,” or a cell phone holder which I use to hold my business cards with “Dad” printed on it also, and a vinyl, stuffed “Yankees” baseball, among other things.
One day, as I was digging through reams of data, I took note of the stuff I am hoarding on my workspace. I picked up and scented candle given to me as a Christmas present years ago and I said:
“Richard, I have this, and you do not.”
He took note of my offering, searched his messy surroundings and picked up one of his items, I think it was a can of Pepsi, and replied: “Michael, I have this, and you do not.”
And so, our juvenile game was born.
Yet, that is not why I have these trinkets and souvenirs in the first place. In the past week, I added two wooden shot glasses with “Haiti” carved on one of them which I bought while on a cruise with my family this summer. Our ship stopped in Labadee, Haiti, and I bargained for them with the shop owner. He started the bidding at twenty-five dollars each. After I told him that only in Fantasy Land he can get someone to pay that kind of money for his junk, I whittled him down to three dollars apiece. When I look at them positioned beneath my monitor, I think about wading through the waters under the Haitian sky with my son riding on my back. My wife and daughter are on the beach trying to get tan, and for a day, we are in paradise.
