Why I killed the post about my wife being fired

Sometimes you get second thoughts and every once in awhile, you get third thoughts too.

BONNEY LAKE - Yeah, Bonney Lake, beautiful Bonney Lake, that’s where I am this morning to see my daughter, Brooke, and granddaughter after seeing Mikey and Stevie last night and banging a few balls around at Fairwood Country Club.

Also had dinner with my soon-to-be 96-year-old mom and her husband, Dick, who I call my second dad. A nice little 36-hour stay in the Seattle area that also included a stop at Northwest Periodontics in Tukwila.

“Jim, your bill today is forty nine fifty,” the accountant at Northwest Periodontics said as I was leaving her office.

“Forty-nine dollars and 50 cents? OK,” I said.

“No, $4,950,” she said.

I knew it was $4,950, but I was just joking around, producing a joke that wasn’t funny, but neither is my tab at Northwest Periodontics. Can someone explain to me why putting one fake tooth in my mouth costs nearly 5 grand?

I inherited periodontal disease from my dad, and I swear to God I’m either brushing my teeth or flossing my teeth or using every little pick known to man on my teeth, trying to keep them clean and prevent my gums from receding more than they already have and losing more teeth than I already have.

It appears to be a losing battle for my teeth and my wallet. I was fine with that missing tooth on the upper right side of my mouth, but the doctor told me it would potentially cause further damage and crooked teeth if I didn’t replace the one that I lost.

I admit to being skeptical - is it because what he told me is really true or is it because $4,950 is a nice tidy little amount that would be coming his way if I agree to have it done, which I have.

Anyway, I’m sorry, I’ve completely buried the lead. The headline on this post has nothing to do with gum disease and missing teeth and everything to do with my wife losing her job and the thoughts that she and I had after I wrote about it.

To recap if you missed the post - and you’ll certainly miss it now since I took it down - Kathie was fired from her concert security job in Bend for having a margarita three to four hours before a company meeting. Our boss canned her for being intoxicated even though she wasn’t.

I thought the punishment was too harsh, but in hindsight, I probably should have left it as a private matter. I also mistakenly thought everyone in the world would agree with my premise that the grounds for her dismissal were beyond ridiculous.

I didn’t see the other side of the story, blinded no doubt because Kathie’s my wife and I knew how much she liked her job and was feeling the loss of not having it anymore.

The best way to have avoided all of this from happening was to not have had a margarita at all, even if it was Cinco de Mayo. Booze and business are generally not a good mix. Though I do want to point out, again, that I had a margarita too and kept my job before quitting a few weeks ago.

Problem is, I really upset a person who works for that concert company. We know her, she’s really cool, and to upset her upsets us. She helped us get those jobs and feels that it might put her in a bad light since she was the one who suggested us as potentially good hires to her boss.

I think that’s what she’s mad about, I’m not sure though, I’ve apologized to her. If I were her boss, I wouldn’t think that what Kathie did and what I wrote would reflect poorly on her, but maybe in some workplaces, that kind of thing does.

Forget that old saying “time heals all wounds,” I’ll hope that’s the case here, but it feels like “time heals some wounds” because this really looks like an exception.

At any rate, Kathie asked me to kill the post and so did our niece. What’s our niece got anything to do with it? Well, the woman that we’ve hurt used to work for our niece.

I don’t know if killing the post will help in any way. But as I said in the headline, I’ve had third thoughts about this and experienced a severe case of writer’s regret. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have written that story in the first place.

MONTANA BOUND - On Thursday, we’ll be heading toward Stevensville, Mont., after a stop in Spokane to see an old friend, Laura Zahn, who used to work with me at the Ketchikan Daily News, my first job out of college in 1979.

When we’re in Montana, we plan to go to Flathead Lake and Whitefish, then maybe go on to Glacier National Park. But first, we’ll be in Stevensville on Saturday to pay our respects to a childhood friend of mine, Doug Pelham.

Doug and his wife Laurie graduated from Redmond High with me in 1974. They moved from the Seattle area to Stevensville in 2013. I saw them last July at our 50-year high school reunion.

They both looked fantastic and were doing well. As always, Doug had a smile on his face. I still remember going to their wedding when they were both 19. They got married at that church on the corner in Bellevue by Overlake Country Club.

High school sweethearts who nearly made it to their 50-year anniversary. Doug was one of those kids you fondly remember from your early childhood. We played Little League baseball at Buckley Field in Redmond, which is now paved over and known as Coal Creek Village.

Doug was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October and died in November. None of it makes sense, how someone who looked so healthy and vibrant in July could be gone four months later.

Laurie has asked me to speak at the memorial and I’ve wrestled with what I plan to say. I think at the core of it, I just want to re-emphasize what everyone at the memorial already knows about Doug - he was one hell of a guy.

I got a Facebook note from Laurie this morning. She will talk at Doug’s memorial and told me about the legacy he wanted to leave.

“He wanted to make a difference in other people’s lives by always doing something to make sure they felt good about themselves.”

If that’s not the definition of one hell of a guy, I don’t know what is.

SUMMER REMINDER - In the springtime, I never, as in NEVER, walk past a Girl Scout who’s selling cookies without buying cookies. I don’t even like Girl Scout Cookies for the most part, but if that little girl over there in her Brownies outfit is selling cookies in front of the Safeway, I’m buying cookies from her.

The same goes for kids at neighborhood Kool-Aid and lemonade stands this summer. Don’t drive past without stopping and buying a cup of Kool-Aid or lemonade. Carry a few dollars with you just in case you see one of those stands with excited little kids hanging out with each other on a hot sunny day, trying to make a little money, maybe to use for a Creamsicle when the ice cream truck comes by later in the day.

Just a friendly summer reminder. Thanks for reading and subscribing. Have a great day.