Lacking anything better to do after Thanksgiving, I decided that a good way to spend my time and get closer to Jennifer would be to share her illness. To that end, I promptly started in with the stomach cramps, some slight diarrhea, and took on an upper respiratory infection as well just for the heck of it. I also got to work at home for most of that week, along with Jennifer who simply sat at home and played games on her computer.

We had met with our builder on Monday evening to talk about doors and windows and floors, and we decided that it was probably time to get serious about choosing out a floor. So on Thursday, during my lunch hour, we drove to downtown Woodland, and we both staggered into The Carpet Store (or whatever it was called) to look at floors and vinyl floor coverings.

Inside, we were impressed with a huge array of carpet materials, patterns, colors, and a sales clerk who chatted cheerfully on the phone while we hunted for wood laminate. We couldn’t find any right away, but the clerk was cheerful as he put aside the phone for a second, asked what we were looking for, and then pointed us at the back room.

After a few minutes, the clerk joined us in the laminate room. "What are you looking for?" he asked. "Formica," Jennifer and I told him; Formica had been the brand that our builder had recommended, primarily because of its warantee and because of its special noise-proofing insulation, which we thought would be perfect in a house populated by two adults and seven cats.

"Hm," the clerk said. "I don’t know anything about Formica. That’s not my specialty. Let me get Todd, he can help you. He knows about this stuff."

So we were left alone again in the laminate room to ponder Pergo, Armstrong, and other breeds of wood laminate that we had never known existed. In a few moments, Todd strode into the room. Except that he turned out to be George, not Todd — Todd was somewhere else.

George was a guy who was probably in his late 40’s, white-haired, and friendly. He, too, was cheerful as he showed us the different brands. We had found a style and color that we liked — in typical Richifer fashion, we’d each picked out our favorite, and our favorites turned out to be identical — but it wasn’t Formica. So George opened up a door in a closed display case and pulled out several samples of Formica that matched — nearly — the one we had chosen that was a different brand.

For awhile, we all chatted cheerfully about the different patterns and materials, all of us relatively cheerful and friendly. Then, however, I took out my Palm Pilot and opened the memo I’ve been tracking this sort of house-related information in, and George’s mood changed.

Drastically. Noticeably.

George’s face and entire demeanor changed. He stared at my Palm Pilot and watched intently as I scribbled onto the screen; he asked questions about it, and Jennifer told him about a number of the Palm’s features and how it worked and so on (Jennifer has a Palm Pilot herself, and I bought mine shortly after we had started dating). While George kept smiling, the quality of his smile had changed. His face had changed.

It was a face that I recognized, because I’ve worn it far too often myself. It was the face of a man who believes that he is stuck where he is, who looks enviously at some of the "toys" that other people have, and the he believes he will never own.

I suddenly became very self-conscious, and slipped my Palm Pilot back into my pocket, but the damage had been done. George kept smiling, but there was a strained and desperate quality to his smile that hadn’t been there before. I knew that as soon as we left and he retired to the small and probably dingy room in the back of the store that passed for the sales manager’s office, the smile would disappear and probably be replaced with a grimace that hinted of resentment and anger.

There’s a modern song which I think is really stupid. Really, really stupid. I think it’s by the band Everclear, and it’s called, "I will buy you a new house" or something like that. A few of the lines go:

I sympathized with George. As Jennifer and I stumbled sickly back to my car, I told her, "George looks like the kind of guy who really doesn’t want to be selling wood laminate flooring at his age and thinks he’s stuck doing it." Jennifer agreed, but we didn’t really talk more about it after that.

George’s face after looking at my Palm Pilot was a familiar one. Six months ago, I was working for just about half of what I’m earning now; and between myself and Jennifer we have a combined income which places us well above — very well above — the average American household income. But I remember all too well what it’s like being poor and envying people some of the toys that they have or the experiences that they’re having that come with having a higher income. I remember how I felt when Jennifer first got her Palm Pilot, long before she and I had started dating but were already friends. I remember how I felt when another of my friends bought a brand new car. Or when someone else bought a brand new computer. And so on.

I still get that way. A co-worker of mine recently returned from a trip to Belize, one of the many countries that I’ve dreamed of visiting. Another one is quitting his job to go on a months-long trip (he hasn’t specified how many months) of Europe. I don’t have that reaction to new toys so much anymore, since I have the Palm Pilot I’ve wanted, a nice laptop computer from my company, and the brand-new car that I’ve wanted (though I guess I’d still like a much nicer desktop computer). Mostly I get that way about job situations these days; I know where I want my career to go, and it unreasonably rankles me to see other people that I know who are already there. I still envy folks who travel for work, especially internationally, since it’s going to be a long time before I get to go.

But it’s different for me now. I also get a sense of satisfaction in knowing that I’m on my way towards where I want to be, and I know that where I am now is actually the result of years of self-tutoring and months of hard looking; and I have more than just my foot in the door now.

But George isn’t there. George is still where I was. I felt some sympathy for him, but not much pity. Despite how I felt just six months ago, and how I occasionally feel even now, I don’t believe anyone is ever stuck in one place, no matter how much they might think they are. I taught myself to design web pages, and now I’m working towards a career in application development (I still have a lot of learning to do, of course). And age is not a barrier, either: I’ve met, in my time, several older people who have made conscious career changes and have moved from stifling situations to situations which — while not always financially rewarding — are spiritually rewarding and very respectable. My own mother-in-law-to-be went from a job as a school secretary to a position as a diaconal minister with her church, something which took years of study and effort, and which she finds very, very rewarding (and is something I would never want to do, because of her specific duties).

But I guess I’ve learned some sensitivity too. If someone had told me, six months ago, "Richard, you’re soon going to have a great job as a web developer with a start up, earning almost twice what you’re earning now and getting to travel and learn a lot," I would have laughed bitterly in their face. No amount of encouragement or support can help some people feel better; I gathered George was much the same way, and had probably had more years of practice being that way than I had ever had.

Jennifer and I drove away from downtown Woodland, decided we were both a bit too sick to drive out to our lot and take a look at the progress of the house, and went home. I’d forgotten about George and my Palm Pilot for some time, but for some reason it’s been coming back to me of late. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been thinking about my goals, about dreams I have, and steps I’ve taken to change my life lately and where I want things to go. Much of what I thought I could never do — build a house, work a good-paying job in the IT field, marry a wonderful woman who pretty much thinks exactly the same thoughts I do — I’ve accomplished or am well on my way to accomplishing. I’ve had to change a lot of my own thinking in the past few months as well, and accept that it is in fact possible for me to achieve goals and do some of the fantastic things I’ve only dreamed about.

It’s changing the thinking that is the hardest part, and some of the old thought patterns are putting up a brilliant struggle.

I still wear George’s face from time to time. I only hope that it’s less often than it used to be, and that I can someday put it up on the shelf and never have to take it down again.