The Top Ten Things in an Ordinary Man's Life

Roy Harrison was turning thirty in just ten days. Something he could not decide if he was looking forward to or if he was loathing it. His lovely wife, Kim was making all the plans for his party. Reminding him of all the preparations and what lengths they were going to go to make sure this transition into another decade of his life would be memorable. While she was making all of these plans and calling up friends and family members to attend what she was hoping would be a high end and fun party. Roy decided to sit down and reflect on his twenties, hoping by doing so he could let go of them and move on. 

After he sat down to his always kept neat glass table-topped desk. He reached over for some lined paper that was situated in a perfect pile in the small cabinet that helped to hold up the desk. After he put a few sheets in front of him, he glided his large slightly tanned hand over towards the black container of his pens. Bringing out one of his many ballpoint pens. On the top of his plain white paper, he wrote out in bold lettering, “Top Ten Things That Happened in my Twenties.” A title he felt was fitting and he even thought that if it were good, perhaps he would read it allowed to his guests on the night of his party. 

He always used bullet points when making a list but this time he decided to annotate the list with numbers. Right before he was about to write out what he thought should be his first point, his wife came over to ask him a question. Before she did so though, she looked at what he was writing. In her faint Chinese accented sweet voice asked him if he could stop writing and come and help her set the table for the two of them. She had made another one of her deliciously healthy meals. One with fish and a good helping of salad. Roy agreed but spent the time that he was setting the table further reflecting on what he should write out. 

During their dinner, Roy ate a bit faster than usual hoping to get back to what he was doing before he set the table. Kim did talk with him about what he was doing and she thought it was a great idea. Even said that maybe she should do that when she turns thirty in two years. He gleamed at her when she said that, looking at her youthful pretty face, and told her that she should count her blessings that she still had two more years to wait until she was thirty. Of which she laughed at him and reminded him that he shouldn’t be dreading it because he was not old. They finished their dinner and while Kim went to watch her favorite TV show, Roy sat back down to write out his list. 

Roy had decided to not write the top ten list to reflect random events instead, he was going to also keep them in order timewise to his best ability. For the first one, he wrote something kind of ridiculous to highlight the hijinks of his youth. He had decided at twenty while in college at UCLA, to take up surfing. A popular pass-time in Los Angeles on the rolling waves of the Pacific. Something he was kind of pressured into by his roommate at the time. A man who was on the diving team and had the muscles to take on the turbulent ocean waves. As he wrote out the first of the list, he thought about how the first time he had fallen off of his board he ended up face planting into the sand right in front of a beautiful woman tanning on the shore. Something he planned to leave out of the story if he was to in fact discuss this list at his party. 

For number two he fast-forwarded to the end of that year right before he turned twenty-one. When he took an internship that was recommended by his professor. An internship at one of the highest tech companies in the area. An internship that would set him on track towards a career that he had dreamt of for a long time. Although he was a novice at first, someone that had no real technical experience outside of the classroom. He was quick to learn and impressed his superiors enough that they offered him a job once he graduated from college. 

As he was moving onto number three in the list, he heard his wife laughing very hard at the TV. Something he was glad to hear, she was always so serious so hearing her laugh was a delight. This one he decided to list out when he bought a lizard who he still had. A bearded dragon with an attitude. Roy had named him Watson because he had just watched a Sherlock Holmes movie and admired the character. This bearded dragon had freaked out Kim when she first met him but she grew to tolerate Watson. 

Number four took him a while to drum up but he settled on the day he met Kim. Most youngsters at that point either met online or in college but that was not the case for Roy and Kim. Instead, they met at a party with mutual friends where he brought his then-girlfriend that he was already having troubles with. Before he and Tracy had come to the party they had a huge fight. It was a surprise to Roy that it didn’t end right then and there. They went to the party anyway and acted like everything was fine. He got up from his seat next to Tracy who was making eyes at his friend Gary. At the table with the drinks, he saw her, Kim with that reserved and polished pretty face. He could tell she was quite young. Roy even wondered at that time if she was of legal age. All they did was say hello to each other and introduce themselves but he was enamored from then on out. Things went from there after he broke up with Tracy and asked the host of the party who the woman was that he met at the drink table. 

As you can imagine number five was the day he asked Kim to marry him and she said yes. When his mother heard the news she said to him that she thought they were moving too fast, it had only been six months since they started dating. It didn’t matter to him or Kim though, they knew it was the right move. He had asked her in a cliche’ way. On a picnic with champagne and asking her with a diamond ring when he kneeled down. 

Next on the list of course was their wedding day. Something he had always wanted. Beneath his rugged exterior he tried to show to his guy friends, he was a helpless romantic. They decided to avoid getting married at a church to his mother’s protest. Instead, they decided on a wonderful outdoor venue that was all that Kim had ever wanted for a wedding. They were married in late spring on a warm and sunny day. An event that they both loved to remember with the aid of the many pictures they had of the occasion. 

Number seven was something that he was not expecting at the time to happen. He received a promotion that he never thought would come his way. He knew that he had only been in the company for a couple of years. His boss Hillary Cooper came to his sparsely decorated cubicle and told him that his work ethic was much appreciated and that he needed to come to her office to discuss a promotion. When he followed her to her office he was teeming with excitement. He hoped he would get out of that cramped cubicle and he was correct in that. 

Just as he was about to get to number eight he remembered that he needed to feed Watson. So, he got up to do that and then afterward kissed his wife on the cheek. He decided when he sat back down on his comfortable leather desk chair that his eighth point should be the time he got to go on a cruise. Both he and his wife were able to take vacation time at their respective jobs and had followed their desires to the Caribbean. The cruise was an eight-day extravagant voyage, with many stops to distant islands. The two of them soaked up the sun, enjoyed the food and the views. Until he got a sunburn on his nose, that ended up peeling before they got back home. He let his annoyance at that go, just wanting to enjoy the tail end of the trip. 

Next on the list for number nine was when they were able to afford a mortgage on their current house. Kim had also got herself a promotion at her job with a salary that surpassed Roy’s. The house was a lovely two-story house that was at first Beige but Kim didn’t like that. To appease this, Roy had it painted a cool blue. They decorated it in a nice and neat order, the way they had lived before. 

Lastly, before he went to bed he wrapped up the list with something that he and Kim had told no one yet. She was pregnant with their child. When Kim informed him that she was pregnant, he felt that his family was going to become complete. He started to work on the spare bedroom to get it decked out for a child. They didn’t know the gender yet so they decided on a jade green color to paint the walls. A color that they thought would be nice and calming for a newborn. 

Come the day of the party that was thrown for Roy, every guest gushed over the lengths at which they had gone to make it special. Everyone enjoyed Kim’s appetizers and were stunned by the beauty of the buttercream frosted chocolate cake she had made. Before the cake was cut, Roy gathered his guests in front of him to talk about how he appreciated that everyone had come. He then told them that he wanted to tell them about the list he had made that detailed the top ten things that had happened during his twenties. To which the group happily laughed and encouraged him to start. He looked down at the list and read it aloud. 

Top Ten Things that Happened in my Twenties

1.Took up surfing

2.Internship at Google 

3.Got Watson the bearded dragon

4.Met Kim

5.Got engaged to Kim

6.Married Kim

7.Promotion

8.Cruise vacation to the Caribbean 

9.Bought the house

10.Finding out that Kim is pregnant