In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you read about children all over the world buying chocolate bars in order to get a golden ticket. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, an apostle for my church, made an amazing point: These children spend all there time looking for the golden ticket, but they don't take time to enjoy the chocolate bar.
This train of though is where "Spin" came from. After I graduated, we moved back to Oregon and moved in with Josh's parents. It was easy to say, "We'll be happy when we have our own place, or two cars, or both of us are employed." It was harder to find joy in the our daily lives as stilly fairly-new-ly-weds, getting to spen all our time together.
"Spin" is a story about enjoying your chocolate bar, while you search for your golden ticket. It's a story about deciding to find the good in a situation, rather than focusing on the bad. It's a story about looking for postives instead of negatives. And with that, here is the preview:
Chapter Ten:
Spin
“Stupid cat!”
The sound of Brownie’s claws skidding across the hard wood floor and Ainsleigh’s soft cursing, just loud enough for me to hear, reached the bedroom at the other end of my parents’ house where I sat, applying for jobs on the laptop.
I rolled my eyes. “What happened?”
Ainsleigh was leaving the kitchen to come talk to me.
“Are you alright?” I asked when she appeared in the doorway.
Her pale cheeks had small patches of red on them. “Brownie jumped on my head when I was getting a glass of juice for breakfast. I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm. I probably just scared her, or something.”
Ainsleigh’s short brown hair was, in fact, a mess.
“Did you squirt her with the water bottle?”
“Oh, Gid, you know I couldn’t do that.”
“You have to train her, or else she’ll never know any better.”
“I will next time.”
I wasn’t sure that Ainsleigh would survive a “next time.” Her arms were already covered in scratches from the last time she got in a fight with my mom’s new kitten and lost, and the animal had a knack for surprise. Ainsleigh never saw her coming.
She sat next to me on the bed. “Have you heard back from anyone yet?”
I stared down at my hands on the laptop keyboard. “No.”
“Oh well.” She leaned over to plant a kiss on my cheek. “I’m sure you’ll get a call in no time. You’ve applied for what, twenty jobs? I’m sure someone will call you in for an interview.”
Twenty-two jobs, actually. I kept track of them on an Excel sheet. Not a single call or email. I started to question the importance of the Masters in Finance I had received a week before we had gotten married.
“When is your mom coming home from work?”
I looked into her light brown eyes. There was a hint of fear in them. She and my mom didn’t get along terribly well. “She gets off at seven on Tuesdays, I think.”
“Alright.” She tried to smile. “I’ll let you get back to the grind.” She got up off the bed and left.
I looked back down at the computer screen: Please list any other skills that are relevant to this position. Well, for starters, I’m a genius? I’ve always been good at everything I’ve ever tried? I have a wife to support, so I’m extremely driven? Stupid people get jobs all the time, why can’t I? I started to lose confidence in my ability to I find a job, move out of my parents’ house, and get on with the rest of my life.
Then, I felt a vibration on my leg. I looked down, and my heart started racing. There was an unknown number illuminated on the screen of my phone. Incoming call. I sat up a little straighter, cleared my throat, let it ring one more time, and answered.
“Hello?”
“Is this Gideon Simmons?”
“Speaking.”
“Hi, Gideon, this is Martha from Chase Bank.”
I closed my eyes and smiled. “Yes, hello. What can I do for you?”
“Well, we wondered when you might be free to come in for an interview.”
I pumped my fist in the air. “I am free anytime.”
“Could we get you to come in tomorrow at eleven? We’ve already interviewed several people, but the branch manager asked me to contact you especially before we closed the bidding.”
“Yes, that will be great.”
“Alright, we will expect you tomorrow at eleven a.m. Have a good day.”
“Thank you, you too.”
I sat my phone back on the bed. “Ainsleigh, I got an interview!”
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