You Can’t Always Get What You Want. But Sometimes You Do

1984

Nineteen eighty-four was the year I learned that asking leading questions can lead to good things happening.

As a coach I know that people with goals tend to make better decisions.

But sometimes karma puts goodies, or baddies, in your path that you have to go for, goals or no goals.

I started a new job in May of 84 which meant I had a new secretary, Lynn. One day while talking to her at her desk I noticed a picture that took my breath away a bit. This led to a relationship with one of two women I've loved unconditionally and unambiguously.

The picture was of Lynn’s dog, Carly.

I asked Lynn about Carly and discovered that Carly was half Irish Setter and half Golden Retriever. Tall. Willowy. Dark Red. Could catch high flying Frisbees in a single bound.

I said to Lynn exactly these words “I'd love to have a dog like that”.

My wife, who is the other woman in this story, and I were between dogs at the time. The kids were six and three. We lived across the street from a busy dog friendly park. And we'd enjoyed having a dog before.

Karma was my friend that day. Lynn replied with this. “Well if you want her you can have her. I'm moving in with my fiancé and have to give her away”.

Carly joined our family a few days later and for the next twelve years was loved and admired. We spent oodles of time together, walking, talking, running, climbing air and sometimes just hanging out.

Soon after I met Carly a surprising bit of fun came my way.

In early June I was at a meeting with sales reps from CHIN Radio. They were trying to get the ad agency I worked for to buy advertising time for our client Shoppers Drug Mart. It was pretty routine. Media companies were selling us all the time.

As the meeting with CHIN was winding down a thought exploded in my 36 year old brain. I asked, expecting nothing, as a hopeful joke, “How does someone become a judge at the CHIN bikini contest?”. It's history now but at the time was a high profile item among all varieties of culture warriors.

No surprise in the reply. “You can't. There's a lineup. We’ll put you on the list”.

Well lo and behold if karma didn't rear her head again. Less than a week later I got a call asking if I could judge one of the preliminary events at which the long list of entrants would be whittled down. I made myself available.

That was the beginning of nine years of judging the contest. My run ended after I left the agency as was no longer of interest to the CHIN sales department.

I suppose the funniest story was the time the auditors from the big accounting firm who counted the judge’s votes had to warn us that we had made a mistake in our selection of semi-finalists. It was a voting not a counting error. In a nutshell they told us there could be violence from the audience if we didn't revote and put this one especially attractive contestant into the final three. We took their advice.

Since 1984 I've had other occasions where asking for what I wanted has been helpful. But none as memorable or pleasurable as my time with Carly and CHIN.