This Is Why

I got a call yesterday from a guy I hadn't seen nor heard from since high school. I had just gotten home from the gym, and my wife told me that this guy was on the line.

I'm thinking when I get on the phone, this better not be what I think it is. I'm sure you all know what I thought this was about.

In any event, he started up with some small talk, asking how things were, how the family is, and what I've been up to. You know, the usual stuff.

The whole time, I'm thinking, "If this is Quixtar, I'm going to freak out". I was getting suspicious of some guy I went to high school with in the 90's who was calling me, and asking how I was doing!

Then he says that he's calling because a mutual friend of ours is getting married at the end of the month, and he's organizing a stag paintball game on Saturday.

I felt like a piece of crap. Here was this super nice guy, asking me genuine things, in a genuine way about how my life is going, and I'm all closed up and short with him. I thought there was no other reason for this guy to be phoning me, other than to share this "opportunity" with me.

Well, we just talked for about a half hour after that, and it was a nice conversation. I enjoyed hooking up with him again, and I am especially looking forward to peppering him with paint this weekend, along with a bunch of other old high school buddies.

I guess I tell you this to help you, constant reader, understand why I have taken the position I have with being anti Amway/Quixtar. It's been over 10 years since I was involved, and I still hate the thought of how it operates, and how it preys on the hopes, fears, and dreams of people, and seldom delivers.

I am still affected by my involvement. Not financially, not emotionally, but just personally. I don't wake up screaming at night, and I don't pee my pants when I use a "negative" product. But there's just something that stuck with me, you know?

I don't want to be suspicious of people who are friendly to me.

Can you dig that?