Challenge Day 14: A picture of his family

"Let me show you", said Tom Snare. "Here’s a picture of my family. There’s my wife Ride to the upper left. She always want to be on top. And that’s my daughter Crash". He pointed to the picture.  "She always  causes me a lot of problems. Then there’s Tom Jr. He's a nice guy of course."

Challenge Day 13: Childhood

“I’ve always wanted to be a Catholic priest,” she said.

“I’m sure you would have been a great priest”, he smiled

Nancy turned her chair in the opposite direction.

 “Now, let’s pretend I’m the priest and you’re coming to confess your sins. I turn around so that I can’t see you. Tell me about all your sins. Let’s start with your childhood.”

“I was the only child in my family for six years. I was living a very safe and protected life among adults,” he started.

“Cut the crap, Tom. I’m the priest. I only want to hear the bad stuff.”

“When I was 10 years old, I stole apples from the neighbor’s garden”

“Stealing is not good, Tom. I hope you’re not doing it anymore. But with all the wars and hunger around the world, do you think God worries about a kid stealing apples? Tell me some really bad and naughty stuff.”

“When I was 12 years old I noticed a tickling feeling in my crotch when I climbed the ropes in the gymnasium in a special way.”

“That’s when you discovered masturbation.”

“It’s a sin, isn’t it?”

“No, not at all. Everybody should do that.”

 “When I was 14 years old, I was on a summer camp for kids. We  peeped at the girls in the shower through the keyhole.”

“That’s natural at that age. I bet the girls were watching you through the key hole in the boys’ shower too. The priests  and monks are doing this all the time, and they don’t stop with the peeping.”

“You don’t sound like a priest to me,” he said.

“ I’m the first ever female priest in the Catholic Church. I’m doing things differently.”

Challenge Day 12: Biggest impact on his life

“I was 18 yo and a fairly good soccer player, said Tom. “I wasn’t very good, nothing like Messi, just fairly good.”

He paused for a while, to bring back old memories.

“It was a cold and rainy Sunday in September.  We played against one of the best teams in the league. I got a pass from the central midfielder, and advanced forward with the ball. Then there was this huge guy who came from behind. He missed the ball, but hit my leg. That was the end of my career. I spent the next 6 months with my leg plastered. ”

“You must have hated this guy who kicked you,” said Nancy.

“Yes, at first I did. But a year later, I sent him Christmas card to thank him.”

“You thanked him for destroying your soccer career?”

“Yes, because during the 6 months with my leg injured, I discovered Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. I read books about nuclear physics and quarks. I studied Riemannian geometry and the theory of relativity. I found there’s more to life than running after a ball.”

Challenge Day 11: The best day in his life

It was a sunny morning in the beginning of May and Tom Snare got up early, which was very wise because this could be the best day in his life, and on such a day it’s good to be early up to really take advantage of it, but then he realized that the best day in his life was probably the day when he won the lottery of mankind, and happened to be born and grow up in one of the richest countries in the world with democracy and human rights and public school and heath care, rather than in a poor desert country suffering in endless drought and civil wars.

It makes a difference, it really does >:)

(I took the picture above many years ago in the West Texas desert on a dry river bed, a so-called wadi, which is cool if you're a privileged scientist who get to travel around the world to study geology, but not if you're a poor nomad and this is all you see when you go out of the tent in the morning to get some water.)