Out Of Nowhere

Dearest Rachel –

The thing about writing to you as opposed to a face-to-face conversation is that – apart from the unfortunate fact that I’m the only one doing the ‘talking’ here, of course – is that there’s a sort of unspoken requirement for everything to mesh into a coherent whole. An actual conversation can veer all over the place because each party to the conversation takes turns ‘steering’ it. As a result, it can go all over the place; indeed, when we used to go on long trips, like to the island, we would practically make a game out of “how did we get here?” at some point several hours into the trip (referring to our conversation throughout, as opposed to any failing in my sense of direction), because we would end up in some of the most absurd places.

However, when it’s just me, I feel that I’m expected to drive the conversation in a single direction, rather than zigzagging all over the place. After all, I’m not being interrupted or distracted by your input, so I can arrange my thoughts (or the events of the day) in a certain fashion in order to come up with an organized thematic structure to it all.

The thing is, life doesn’t come at you in an organized fashion, and it’s not always easy to make sense of it all – or at least arrange it in some sort of theme. Granted, from a temporal perspective, everything happens in a sort of order; one thing happens, and then another (or at least, you’re made aware of each thing that happens in a sort of sequence). But just because that’s the case doesn’t mean that there’s any other connection between the events of the day. They just happen, and most have no perceptible connection to the other – they may not happen in a vacuum, to be sure, but what one conversation has to do with an email from elsewhere is virtually zero, apart from the fact that they all come into my orbit, leaving me to determine how to tell you about them in a way that might make sense.

The best I can come up with on such short notice is to deconstruct the whole concept, and basically tell you that, as far as I’m concerned, each of these came from nowhere. That’s oversimplifying things, of course – and in fact, some have been in process behind the scenes for some time; I shouldn’t have been caught off guard by them. But since one of them seems so completely out of my element, all at once, the rest of them do, too. So I’m going to tell you about them with this perspective in mind.

***

The lynchpin of all this is something that I probably shouldn’t go into great detail about, but that’s okay, since I’m not sure I really understand it in the first place – which it kind of the point. It was a business offer, to gather contacts and sales representatives to bring a product into the American market over from Europe. Why I should be asked to be part of this, I don’t know. I’m not a salesman, and moreover, I’ve no idea how to make contacts with people who are. It’s why I couldn’t carry on the business Dad set up back in the day (my sister Jen could very well have, but she determined that she had another calling).

Moreover, this seems to involve being one of several layers of middlemen between a manufacturer and its potential customers, which, I’ll be honest, I find myself philosophically opposed to. The more layers there are in between those two, the more said customer pays for a product, which just doesn’t sit right with me. It may be that I don’t understand the nature of business in general – these customers don’t realize what’s available, and wouldn’t seek such a product out, were it not brought to their attention, which is where these middlemen fit into the picture – but it still seems like extra layers are being added, which add to the final cost for the customer. Sure, in this case, it’s a business that can well afford that extra, but odds are, it will then pass those costs along to individuals that use their products and services, and life is expensive enough for the average Joe already.

But I’ll be the first person to admit I’m something of a dilettante when it comes to these things, and such an opinion on my part may well be born out of sheer naïveté. Which circles back to the question of why anyone would propose I be part of such a business opportunity. I’ll certainly think about it – the one asking me is someone I would never be suspicious of, in terms of acumen, trustworthiness or ulterior motives – but this whole thing seems to have come completely out of nowhere.

***

By contrast, most of the rest of the things cropping up are almost to be expected, if not all at once. This morning, I woke up to a collection of messages from the latest dating app I’ve been subscribed to – this, after several weeks of virtual silence. One was a recommendation to contact someone who seems to be a good match (at least, scientifically speaking, based on their algorithm; their profile, on more detailed review, isn’t nearly so promising). Another was a response to a text message or two I’d sent out, which I replied to straightaway; nothing likely to go anywhere, we have just been chatting back and forth about travel-related bucket lists, and she was asking about cruises, which she had never been on, to which I gave more than my two cents’ worth.

At this rate, if I were seriously considering going into business (which is another thing; I like the autonomy of being retired), I’m wondering if being a travel agent would be more my calling that this proposition I’m suddenly finding myself mulling over.

Of course, not everything that suddenly came my way was promising. One of the emails I received from the dating site basically all but read “So-and-so is interested in you!” but when I clicked on the email and went over to the site, there was nothing there. it turned out that, between the time they sent me the email informing me of this message and when I actually went to read her message, the site had determined that she had violated their terms of service and promptly kicked her off. To be sure, her message included an email address at which I could contact her if I so chose, but I suspect that’s the very thing that violated their terms of service in the first place. I’ll give the site credit for weeding out these kind of people (if they can even be called that), although it does mean that there is less drama to tell you about that with the other site.

***

And not everything that happened within the last 24 hours was an opportunity. I got home last night to Daniel informing me that there was water at the bottom of the chest freezer in the utility room.

“You mean to tell me it’s leaking?”

“No, it’s in the bottom of the freezer.”

“Wait, water? At the bottom of the freezer… inside?” it seems as if, somewhere along the way, a switch had been thrown, and the things are either malfunctioning or on defrost mode. Daniel had tried to do something about it the other day (and for whatever reason hadn’t mentioned it to me at the time), but to no result. The good news lay in the fact that we have nearly cleared out the appliance sometime ago; however, there were still a few things that we needed to throw out. Good thing garbage pick up was this morning, so it’s not like there was a whole bunch of stuff lying around, waiting to be thrown out, for days on end. But yeah, one more thing coming out of nowhere for us to deal with. Not sure if Kerstin will be interested in it at this point, since it might not be working, but I suppose we’ve got it as clear as it can be, so we can ask her about it.

Anyway, that’s another day in the life. I trust things are going much better where you are; wish I could hear from you as to how they were going. Regardless, though, keep an eye on us, honey, and wish us luck. As always, we’re going to need it.