Mr. W called me this morning from work and told me that he MIGHT get a 4-day all-inclusive free ride, sponsored by his work, to Washington, D.C. in January for president-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration. He was giddy with the possibility. But he’s not bringing me.

So I instantly thought of where *I* could be during this historic moment. When I’m old and grayish-yellow-green, when my grandkids ask me if I remember the day, this will always be the story of where-I-was-when. I bounced a few ideas around and then I said excitedly, “Ooh, I should go to Florida! They finally turned blue this election! I can watch the inauguration with Jordan!”
“We won’t even know for two weeks whether I’m gonna get to go or not!” Mr. W protested.
“Okay, but I’ll just tell Jordan now, since it’s a possibility.”
“Don’t tell her! Wait at least 2 weeks.”
“But she might be scheduling her work schedule for January NOW,” I pointed out, eager to start planning my 4 days in Florida.
He still insisted I shouldn’t tell her, we shouldn’t start planning on something that’s not set yet, I shouldn’t get our hopes up that I’ll be making that trip to Florida when I may not be, etc.
“Okay,” I finally relented. We said our goodbyes and hung up.

Instantly I called Jordan. Anticlimactically, I got her voice mail and then she didn’t get back to me for a few hours. But when she did, we started excitedly planning where we could go on day trips, since it is a long weekend. I’ve been to Miami, but never to Orlando. She also named some other city, Saint Somethingsburg, where I’ve also never been. After all the giggling and excited chattering, we came down to earth a little and talked about how this may not happen cuz Mr. W may not be going to Washington D.C., after all, and we’d be all disappointed. There was a little silence, and then I said, “Heck, if he tells me he’s not going after all, I’ll just tell him, ‘Too bad, we already planned this, I’m going to Florida anyway!’ ”

I think I’m beginning to see why Mr. W didn’t want me to talk about it with Jordan early.