6 months old
Jeff Dombkowski sticks his finger in my mouth during Moms N Tots, and I bite it. That is the end of the meeting.
4 years old
Jeff Dombkowski steals my fruit cup during Sunday School, and I scream like I'm being drawn and quartered. Both families leave church early.
9 years old
Jeff Dombkowski spells "insouciant" correctly in the school spelling bee. I have to sit down.
14 years old
In the final round of the math bowl, Jeff Dombkowski doesn't listen when I insist that synthetic division will give us another value of x. His mom drives us and the third place trophy home in silence.
18 years old
I deliver a terrible valedictory riddled with platitudes and verbal pauses. I should feel fantastic, looking down on Jeff Dombkowski from my place at the lectern. He ruins the effect by kissing Ashley McCleod.
22 years old
Jeff Dombkowski and I graduate cum laude and manage to say a civil word to each other at the joint graduation party our moms insist on throwing. I get into Stanford Law, and so does he. I go to California, but he stays home to take his dad to chemo treatments.
29 years old
I come back home to escape the California wildfires and the fact that my ex wasn't ready to get married until he met Jennifer. I don't get on the return flight.
I am already late to my interview at a prestigious law firm, I have a flat, and while I clerked for a Supreme Court judge, changing a tire is beyond my ken. To top it all off, Jeff Dombkowski walks by as I try and fail to wipe grease from my silk blouse.
33 years old
My 6-month-old is hollering in the background, and my husband lets her chew on his thumb in a last-ditch effort to hush her up while I talk to the pediatrician.
"D as in sleep-deprived, O as in... otitis media, M as in mistake, B as in baby, K as in knowledge, O as in... otitis media again, W as in what was I thinking marrying someone with this last name? ... Shoot, I lost track of where I was."
The baby bites Jeff Dombkowski's thumb. He yelps, and I try and fail not to laugh.
END
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