Missed Opportunities

During my last year living in Seattle, some enormous Meeting of Nations event took place. I can't remember what it was now--maybe the first of the World Trade Organization meetings or something. The lucky SOBs staffing the ritzy downtown hotels were reporting $100 tips from the Sultan of Brunei just for holding the door open for him. I wanted to go downtown and hold open doors. A hundred bucks was a heck of a lot of money to me. Maybe if I did up my hair and put on a strategic outfit he'd take me on as permanent staff. I could certainly think of worse ways to make money.

So anyway, there I was, mulling these things while doing my early morning walk around Greenlake, and a huge entourage of black limousines with darkened windows began circling the lake. There were probably seven of them. It was very early morning, maybe 7 am. I figured it was some foreign dignitary taking a little trip around the city, and, having little interest in these things at the time, I went off to my classes and forgot about it.

But it wasn't just any foreign dignitary. It turned out, as I saw on the news that night, that what I'd seen was President Clinton. And he wasn't just passing through--he was getting set to do his morning jog around Greenlake. If I'd hung around for maybe another ten minutes, I'd have seen him trot by in his jogging shorts, surrounded by seven cars' full worth of secret service agents.

My friend L. was sorely aggrieved when she found out she'd missed it. She would have been there waiting for him to pass, she said. And then she would have asked him for a kiss.

A kiss? Why would anyone want to kiss Bill Clinton?

But I did not doubt that this was exactly what she would have done. This was the girl, after all, who once licked the sweat off Bruce Springsteen's leg at a concert. (I thought that was pretty gross, too, but maybe that's just me.) L. was a very attractive girl. If she'd had her chance that morning, it could have been her instead of Monica Lewinsky.

Just think. She could have changed history.