I Love My Life.

I love my life, I really do. Yesterday a congressman came in to the store, but not just any representative,but Iowa's Fred Grandy. My fellow pop-culture geeks will recognize the name, but for those who don't, he played "Gopher" on The Love Boat. I watched that show every Saturday mainly because my TV only got three channels, though I must of liked it on some level. It ruined a lot of my early relationship though, I thought you could just say "I love you" because people who just met each other were saying it on that show all the time. It took a little while for me to learn what a mistake that was because I believed my soon-to-be-ex girlfriends when they told me that wasn't the reason they were breaking up with me; "No, I think it's sweet." Right.

It still figures prominently in my day-to-day life; I sing the "Love Boat Theme" ALL THE TIME. When I see someone I'm happy to see, sometimes I'll sing their name in the place of the word "love" live, "John Dimes, life's sweetest reward, let him float, he floats back to you!" Conversely, to crack up my co-worker Lizzy I sing it in a German accent, "DAS LOVE BOOT!"

So any way.... The other day in the Toy Store, I looked in our notebook where we keep customers requests and saw his name and went to my boss "Is that Fred 'Gopher from The Love Boat' Grandy?"
"I don't know," he said, which didn't surprise me; he's had a life. It was. When he actually came in, I was still bleary from the cold I had spent the previous day battling so I didn't notice it was him until halfway through ringing him up. I could just barely contain my geeky excitement. If I knew where he was from I could have told him about about my recent Iowa adventures or regaled him with a verse of "DAS LOVE BOOT!" but my discretion -thankfully- proved successful and kept everything on a professional level.

He was a nice guy, by the way.