Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:

The Unexpected Visitor

A little background is needed for this one. My step-dad was a lawyer and trouble-shooter for a gargantuan insurance and banking company that will remain nameless except to say that you used to be encouraged to "get a piece" of it. We moved around a lot as he was sent to different locations to straighten them out. He did a goodly amount of purging and hiring to correct deficiencies in personnel. Okay, background is over.

A few months after we moved to Freehold, NJ (home of The Boss!) I arrived home from school (7th or 8th grade or thereabouts), tossed my book-bag in a corner and turned on my new and beautiful Atari 2600 to immerse myself in its digital wonders. Mom was upstairs cleaning and Little Bro was taking a nap or something. In any case I was completely undisturbed, which was a great rarity. The doorbell rang. I ignored it. It rang again. I ignored it again. This was in the days before the "pause" button and Mario was not going to make it for more than a few seconds if I abandoned him.

The doorbell rang a third time. Mom called down from upstairs "Jim, will you PLEASE answer the door?!". I sighed mightily, said a quick prayer for my pixelated friend and dashed to the door. There was a chance, a small one mind you but a chance nonetheless, that it would be a Scout selling something or some other non-entity that I could quickly dismiss and return to my beloved video game in time to save poor Mario's life. I sprinted to the door, pulled it open and stopped. Dumbfounded.

On the porch was a frumpy but well dressed Indian lad (traditional, not American) with two suitcases. "Good afternoon" he said. "I am Ravi Patel (name changed to protect the innocent). I did not have the phone number so I took a taxi cab from the airport when no car appeared for me."

I continued to be dumbfounded. I didn't even hear Mario's digital death. Multiple digital deaths, actually. Remember that in those days the next life just started right after the previous one ended. No "start button" to continue or anything like that.

"Mom!" I cried. "Can you come down please? There's somebody to see you!"

Mom came downstairs and was as dumbfounded as I. As she worked the story out of Ravi it was revealed that my step-dad had hired Ravi's father. My step-dad and Ravi's parents had worked things out so Ravi could come right away and stay with us for a few weeks until his parents arrived. He would be going to my school and the less of the school year missed the better it would be for him. Except nobody had told my Mom so instead of being met at the airport by his temporary fosters he had waited for an hour and then taken a cab.

Mom was not happy. Not even a little bit. She had me entertain Ravi while she went into the kitchen to call my step-dad. He confirmed Ravi's story and apologized that he had forgotten to mention to my mother that she was going to be running a temporary boarding house. I can't tell you what my step-dad's part of the conversation was but I remember my Mom's closing words to the letter.

"Okay, I will take care of it but when you get home we are going to talk. And by 'we' I mean 'me'. And by 'talk' I mean 'scream at you'."

And that's how Ravi came into our life. He ended up staying with us for almost two months. His parents arrived a few weeks after he did but he'd grown on Mom by then and she said it was silly for all of the Patel's to be stuck in a hotel until they got a house. We never really hit it off. He wasn't really interested in Atari (which was an all consuming obsession for me at the time), read too much and was just waaaay too polite.

Posted by: Jim at 05:40 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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