Willer-Wild Outfitters Co.

Author's ramble:

Before we get into this (unavoidably long) story: Alex Menelaus' final revenge is coming (Boy, Can he hold a grudge). I need to feel real rage to wrap it up. Maybe filling my taxes this month will do it.

I also have a ~90% completed story about a former Russian spetznatz who's a certified sociopath. All he wanted was to live in peace. But thetovarishchchose Sicily, of all places...

And there's a story about a doctor and his wife who all they wanted was to do good, but they are manipulated into disaster. ~70% done.

Thomas (from Prince Charming) has a sequel that's 80% there. It happens in Andalusia and Belgium.

Finally, I think Gina and Alan will get a sequel, with some more tribulations - no betrayals, just issues of expectations --before they can finally re-align their compasses. Hopefully I will be done with all this before I am senile.

This story was written under the following auditory stimuli: INXS, Midnight Oil, Oingo Boingo, Talking Heads, Pulp, Faith No More, Rage Against The Machine.

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Willer Wilderness Outfitters Co.

Willer Wilderness Outfitters Co.

The Infinite Monkey Theorem, applied to love and marriage

The Infinite Monkey Theorem, applied to love and marriage

Prologue

"Honey, something has come up. I am sorry but we will have to cut our celebration short."

I looked up from my chaise at my wife Alice. I knew my wife. If she looked sorry, it's because she was sorry. What could possibly have happened? Oh well, if she had to, then she had to. She'd never mess upOurTwentiethDay if it wasn't something really important. But it would be my job as the aggrieved party to give her a bit of a hard time nevertheless.

Alice and I have been together for over twenty years, and we have had the twenty most amazing years any couple could ever wish to have. We loved, understood, supported, tolerated, loved, fulfilled and loved each other yet again in every possible way. We were more happily married than most legally married people (having seen plenty of married people, I justknewit).

That - the fact we never really married - is why we don't celebrate Anniversaries. Instead, we just do 'Our Days.' That's a guesstimated date, because neither remembers the exact day we decided, or realized, we were together. About two months after our first real date, we noticed we were spending more nights together than apart, and that I had as much of my stuff in her condo as in my flat. That night - exact date never recorded - we decided I'd move in, and that was it.

We eventually realized we needed a date to celebrate, and my move-in date should be it. The problem was: we never wrote it down. We had to deduce it had been a Friday, most likely August 15th, two years prior. That became "Our Day." Wenevermissed it.

I hold a B.Sc. in Greek History and Philosophy from UBC. In philosophy, I had to learn about human mindset frameworks and constructs. For example: Our actual control of our destiny is much less than we tend to believe, and it's not because of God, predestination, or any other mystical concepts. It's because of randomness. People have a hard time understanding that life is random and we are the product of random probabilities. Let's say you were the developer of Altavista, or Yahoo, or Ask Jeeves. You dideverythingright, but you lost and Google won? Was it because the Google folks outsmarted you? No! It's because only one wins, and Google was... lucky?

That's called Survivorship Bias, and I like that construct.

I also love other constructs such as Reversal to the Mean, Black Swan, and my favourite: the "Infinite Monkey Theorem." It goes like this: Give enough monkeys (an infinite number of monkeys, to be precise) each a typewriter and an equally infinite supply of paper, and let them type randomly for a large enough time (probably about a billion years or so), and it's guaranteed one of them will eventually type a Shakespeare sonnet word for word. It's bound to happen. Law of Large Numbers applied to the universe.

Alice and I werethat one lucky monkey with a typewriter.

Across billions of married couples that ever lived, I was sure, sure, sure and sure again that Alice and I were that lucky monkey. We had the one marriage wherenothing ever went wrong.Weneverhit a wrong key: Our love didn't fade. We never cheated. We never eventhoughtof cheating. We never argued. We never got sick of one another, nor physically sick either. We never had money problems - we have the opposite problem: what to do with all the money we earned? We were always respectful to each other. We became minor celebrities (well, Alice did, but I am widely known as her husband and life rock.)

We never had mid-life anxieties. Our sex life never faltered - we both still initiated sex frequently, randomly and spontaneously. We loved it. We never left each other's side for more than a few hours - outside of my own day time job, that is.

We burned the midnight oil together to build her business. And after twenty years, we loved each other as much as when we met.We, the monkeys with a typewriter, weren't typing a sonnet, but an entire epic love poem.

Okay. I am going to dial it down a notch or ten. Of course there were arguments, misunderstandings, the occasional spat, and the inevitable PMS - when I knew better than to stick around. But I could honestly say that I didn't remember a single instance whenanyill feelings made their way to our bedroom at night.

We were that much in sync.

But back to the current issue: we were celebrating ourOurTwentiethDay in the grandest style. Twenty years together. Twenty years that took us from living in a two-bedroom condo (Alice) and a crappy rental flat (me), to being self-made Instagram multimillionaires and later outfitters, and still very much in love. We had planned three entire weeks together. I am a public servant. After more than two decades on the job, I had earned the right to fairly generous vacation time, butgenerousisn't the same asflexible. Our celebration month had to be planned over half a year in advance.

We were spending two weeks at a Ritz Carlton at a beach in Mexico, to be followed by a week hiking the Garibaldi Provincial Park in British Columbia. That's the hike that we'd promised we would do together the very day we first met, before we werewe.Twenty years later, we had seen the world, but never managed to hike the Garibaldi, right next door to us.

We planned to spend our actual Twentieth Day at the summit. I was going to propose to her with a huge diamond ring I had bought, even if we had agreed years before we didn't need to legally marry.

"What happened, Alice?" I didn't bother hiding my disappointment.

"It's New Zealand, again. I have to go."

For several months now, since the opportunity to expand the Willer Wilderness brand to New Zealand came up, she'd been flying Vancouver to Auckland to Vancouver for a week each month. Eighteen hours on an airplane each way, followed by massive jet lags. For a now 42-year-old woman, it was no easy feat. She came home so tired every time that she pretty much slept through for two entire days afterwards. She'd often wonder how the airline pilots coped with it. Simple, I always replied: once they landed and deplaned, their job was done. Alice however arrived and had to go to work.

"Can't you push it a week? We'd planned this for so long! Who knows when I will get another week off!" I had burned through my entire year's vacation allowance, and Alice had carefully cleared her entire month for us. Who knew when we'd have another chance.

"Afraid not, honey. We are launching the Southern Hemisphere's spring and summer collection next month; they need a photo op with me at the beach and another in the mountains. There is a big retail contract to sign, and there is a time-sensitive acquisition opportunity that we must either sign or lose next week. It's a local brand with a good distribution footprint, but also something we could take global alongside ours."

Acquisition? How come I didn't hear of that before? It was her company, but I was an 'independent' board member and I headed the finance committee. We usually discussed such things well in advance.

"Acquisition? How come I haven't heard of it?"

She looked embarrassed. "Sorry, honey. This really just came up. I didn't know they were for sale. That's the real reason. The photo op itself could wait, but not this."

I sighed. "I still don't get why New Zealand is so important. Yes the place is beautiful, but it's a tiny market at the end of the world. Why not Seattle and Portland right across the border? Bigger and easier markets? I am not a business guy, but I understandyourbusiness. It's sort of obvious."

Her turn to sigh. "Not my business, Paul. Ours. And we discussed that already, my love. The Pacific Northwest is overserved with mountain gear and apparel in general. The North Face, Columbia, Patagonia, REI, MEC, Mountain Warehouse. Fjallräven is making inroads out of Sweden, and even our local Lululemon from Vancouver is encroaching. Too many strong brands and retailers. New Zealand is exotic. Kind of like Sweden, is to the Europeans. Itsauragoes well beyond the little islands. And Willer Wilderness sells the dream of the far out to the people."

"Then why not the Yukon Territory? It's wild and right next door to us! One hour north from Vancouver."

"It's not the same. The Yukon is for gold miners, fishermen and hunters. And it's plagued by forest fires nearly every summer. It's not our target market."

I knew she had a point. "Where will you be staying?"

"Auckland, the usual hotel. I will send you the complete itinerary as usual."

"I don't like it, Alice. And not just because it's Our Day. It's because these trips are destroying you. You have to delegate it to one of the younger girls."

"Honey, please. I will make up to you, I promise. And it will be for just a few more months."

Make up she did, in advance. For the following five days we were like newlyweds: we strolled the beaches, we held hands, caressed one another, hugged, kissed, had sex and talked like we always did. I was a bit disappointed I'd spend Our Twentieth Day alone at home, but I had to admit the stay in Mexico was going great. Maybe it was okay we'd miss Garibaldi. I wasn't even sure I'd be able to walk, let alone hike, after all the sex we had. I was sore; Alice wasn't complaining, but she was walking funny.

We were in bed, our room's door wide open to the balcony, ocean breeze keeping us comfortable. We just had sex again. I was just lazily caressing her entire body, from necks to toes. I got to the anklet she'd been wearing around her left ankle since her second visit to New Zealand. She had explained it was an honorary token of belonging, given to her by a Maori community leader due to a publicity stunt they did together, and that put the community on the global tourism map. Now that we spent two weeks on a beach, she had a tan line around her ankle. I didn't like the anklet, it gave me bad vibes. I got the impression she didn't particularly like it either, but she kept it. Go figure.

"What did you see in me all those years ago, Alice?" It was a question I occasionally asked her, for reasons of my own, reasons she never guessed.

"You know I have no answer to that. When I saw you, I felt something right away. And I know you did, too."

"I did. I mean, I don't deny. There was an immediate attraction, but never in my wildest dreams... Why do you think we still get along so well? I mean, how many people around us have divorced or just barely tolerate one another?"

"Respect? Conversation? Empathy? Doing everything together? Compromising when something is important to the other? Without those things, love withers and dies." She was of course right. We did exactly as she said.

She carried on. "I know I became very successful, more than I'd ever expected. And I owe it to you. Without you to be my anchor to reality, where would I be?"

"Am I an anchor?"

"No! More like a rock, a pillar. You keep me on solid ground, anchored to reality. And that's how I grow."

"If someone told me twenty years ago where you'd be today..."

"...Whereweare today, Paul. It'sus, notme. But please, don't overthink. Pass me that flute of bubbles and come love me."

"In a bit. First, please sit up." I sounded and looked serious, and so did she, immediately.

"Alice, I know we've been through that, but this time I am serious." I pulled a little velvety box I'd hidden under the mattress earlier. "Would you finally marry me? For real?" I opened the box and showed her the ring. She was speechless. "I was going to ask you on top of Mount Garibaldi next week. But here is a good place, too."

I thought I saw a quick wave of sadness wash her face, but she quickly recomposed and opened the biggest smile I'd ever seen. I put the ring on her finger - where she already had one that we traded years before (We weren't married but we wore simple wedding bands nevertheless). Over sparkling wine, we agreed we wouldn't do a traditional party. Instead, we'd have an officer of peace wed us at WW's Christmas party later in the year, in front of a surprised audience. It was my idea, and Alice loved it.

"Imagine what people will think, when I show up in a wedding dress to a Christmas party! It's going to be epic!"

We made love after that; real, caring love; then we went for dinner. During dinner, I noticed a waitress asking Alice something about that anklet. I was out at the bar, and couldn't hear the discussion. It reminded me I didn't like it and soon I'd have to finally talk to her about it.

As I sat down at our table, I noticed Alice was pressing a finger against her stomach as if she were in pain. It hadn't been the first time that day.

"Is something wrong?"

"Oh no, it's nothing. Too much spicy Mexican food, I think."

I made nothing of it.

Sleep troubles

For a few months, I had been having trouble with my sleep. Not falling asleep.Thatcame quickly. But I'd wake up in the middle of the night for no good reason. My doctor said, jokingly, that I suffered from chronic rich peoplesleepicitis:Not having any serious life problems could cause just as much insomnia as having them. He recommended physical exercise, but I already did a lot of that.

That happened again tonight and it annoyed me. I knew I'd lay awake for at least an hour until sleep caught me again.

I looked at my beautiful, naked and very asleep Alice and saw the little silvery charms around her ankle. they were reflecting the moonlight. I hadn't paid that much attention to the piece of jewellery before, mostly because I didn't like it. I was suddenly convinced the number of charms--five in total--had increased since the last time I saw it. And the whole thing looked expensive. I wasn't one to be culturally insensitive, but it gave me bad vibes. I wondered if someone had put a curse on her for disturbing the peace at a sacred ancestral site.

Was that stupid piece of platinum and silver somehow linked to my inability to sleep? I didn't believe in the mystical, but Alice did...

That was it. I made one of the very few unilateral decisions ever in our relationship. Careful to not wake her up, I unhooked her anklet and tossed it out the balcony. I heard as it splashed into the ocean down below. If she asked, I'd deny having seen it.You know, honey, I don't remember seeing it on you yesterday when we left the beach, either...

It also occurred to me I didn't like her sudden sadness when I proposed to her. I figured she was probably sad that I didn't get to propose at Mount Garibaldi as I planned. Her excitement at our surprise wedding party was very genuine.

Tossing the anklet put me in a good mood. Sleep won me over in a few seconds, and I slept wonderfully for the rest of the trip. Alice didn't seem to notice its disappearance, either.

Goodbyes at YVR

We landed in Vancouver and said our goodbyes, she was going to travel on right away. One of her aides had packed a bag for her next trip and brought it to the airport. I teased her as we said our goodbyes. "This will cost you, Alice, and I will collect your debt with interest. Shark loaner style. Be ready."

"I look forward to paying that debt and interest, shark!"

We hugged and kissed goodbye for a minute longer and a couple of inches deeper into each other's throats than would be appropriate for a couple in their early forties. She headed to security as I waved goodbye.

I took the SkyTrain to downtown, then the ferry across to North Vancouver and a regular taxi to our multi-million dollar home in West Vancouver - B.C.'s fanciest neighbourhood by far. A house we were able to afford thanks to Alice's success in business. By the time I got home, I reckoned Alice must have been a thousand miles to the southwest, on a flight path that would take her above Hawaii somewhere down to Auckland.

I slept poorly that night on the empty bed, and woke up feeling abandoned in the empty house. Even the magnificent view to the Strait of Georgia and Bowen Island didn't cheer me up. I tried calling Alice, but she either hadn't landed yet or had her phone off. I called the office and asked if I could fill in for someone, and maybe recover some of my otherwise wasted vacation days. No luck.

Five hours into my empty day inside my empty house and I was feelingveryantsy. There was no way I'd spend a week like this. Why the fuck was I here alone anyway? I retrieved my laptop and wallet, logged into Air New Zealand's website, and purchased a round trip business class ticket to Auckland, leaving Vancouver the next morning at 8 a.m.; returning with Alice five nights later. I packed a bag in a hurry; then I remembered I was headed to Southern Hemisphere's winter, and repacked. I ordered an Uber Black to pick me up at 4 a.m. Yuck. The things we do for love.

I did the same trick Alice usually did. I stayed awake all night, so that by 9 a.m. Vancouver time, airplane already in the air, I was almost ready to go to sleep. I was a happy boy in the B787 business class seat, looking forward to spending Our Twentieth Day together after all, and, in the process, getting to see a little bit of that beautiful country Alice and Billy talked so much about.

I reminisced about my life journey while I waited for sleep to finally win over me.

Paul Moreau (that's me, and the only French thing about me is my last name)

I was thirteen years old when I first noticed my dick was small. Correction. I didn't notice anything, my swimming teammates did--in the male locker room, one afternoon after training, when we all had our dicks at least half hard. No, we were not a bunch of homosexuals (and no, I am not homophobic). Our erections were due to our having shared our pool lanes with the female swimming team all afternoon due to some scheduling issue. Like all teenagers, we had more hormones than blood running in our veins.

I was full of hormones as well. But it seemed mine were enough to get my male appendage fully hard to its entire majestic 3 1/2-inch length (No I didn't know my length, I measured it later at home). Meanwhile some of the other boys carried...poking tools...measuring into the five, six or even bigger lengths (and again I didn't measure anyone. Yuck.)