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July 16, 2006

The Goods Is Odd

Just... trust me.

There was a recent discussion on an online loop (hi, Cherries!) in which someone brought up the fact that I met my husband (hi, Fish!) in Alaska (hi, Alaskans!) This inevitably led to the "Is Alaska a good place to find men?" discussion, because for years, thanks to magazine articles and Oprah (hi, Op-- okay, I'll stop), people have been told that a single girl in want of a husband should strap on her mukluks and head north.

To which I say... no. God, no.

There's a saying about Alaskan men - the odds are good, but the goods are odd. Truer words have not been spoken since "Girls just wanna have fu-un." Seriously. Yes, I met my husband there, but that was different. We were college drifters who just happened to be in Alaska at the same time. And we were in our early twenties. By the time the single Alaskan man gets to the age of 30-plus, well...

The goods is odd, girls.

Now, before I share my single Alaskan men stories, a few disclaimers.

One, please note that I'm completely generalizing, I'm sure there are some single Alaskan men who are worth traveling 5,000 miles into the frozen tundra to snag.

Two, I think it has to be said that me writing about this is very much the pot calling the kettle odd.

Thirdly, I must say, the people who are born and raised in Alaska are much more normal than the people who come in from elsewhere. I think, possibly, this might be because the people who come in from Elsewhere are leaving Elsewhere because they prefer the isolation of a place like Alaska. Which I think might be indicative of... something. I'm not saying what, I'm just saying... something:

The Goods Is Odd #1: He really seemed normal...

When I was the Creative Services Director (i.e., local commercial producer, i.e., welcome to the fifth rung of hell) in Anchorage, I had the opportunity to hire a videographer for my team. I interviewed a handful of people, but there was one guy who just impressed the hell out of me. He had a nice presence, great resume reel, and seemed like the kind of guy who would represent us well when out with clients. So, I hired him. Everything was fine, until about six weeks after I hired him, when our station got bought out by another company, and suddenly his checks were coming from a bank Outside (that's how Alaskans refer to anyplace not in Alaska, hand to God) and the local banks wouldn't cash them for him if he didn't have a checking account with them. He came to my office to complain.

I said, "Well, hey. Why don't you just get a checking account?"

"I don't believe in checking accounts."

Long silence. I blinked a few times, and without trying to give away that I thought it was weird, I said, "You don't believe they exist? Or you don't believe--?"

And... we were off. He started talking, and after about twenty minutes of Big Brother conspiracy talk, and how the banks take all your money and use it to invest and in reality, your money isn't even really there because they're spending it and what if the investments go bad, then you have no money, and don't even get him started on the service charges, service charges for what, exactly? they charge you to take your money and then invest it and then lose it and then you have no money, etcetera, etcetera, I made a few calls and found a way for him to get his checks cashed. Now, I have to say, I really liked this guy as a person and I respected the hell out of his work.

I just wouldn't have married him, is all.

The Goods is Odd #2: Shut up, Chuck.

There was a guy I had to work with when making commercials. He was the head of his own advertising firm, very successful by anyone's yardstick, let alone Anchorage's. He had a huge client, a car dealer, for which he was the public face - aka, the guy who stands in the parking lot in a yellow/orange/money print suit in every kind of weather and shouts "What a deal!!!!" at the camera. One year, we were doing an internal sales promotion where we gave away a luxury cruise to Turkey (this was pre-9/11 days) to our biggest clients. As the promotions girl, it was my job to prepare the brochure and make it all pretty, so I knew what was involved in this cruise - it was tres swank. So this guy - let's call him Chuck because that's his name - comes in for a meeting with his sales rep and me, and the sales rep starts out with this pitch. Chuck picks up the brochure, snarls, tosses it across the table, and says, "I've been thrown out of better places than that." Talk about class.

Chuck was single. Still is, to the best of my knowledge. Quite the catch, huh?

The Goods is Odd #3: Outside of Nome.

This, I think, is my favorite story. My in-laws live in a small town on the Kenai Peninsula, a wonderful, lovely place. They're very involved in the community, and if there's a party going on, usually it's at their house. One night, Fish and I were there visiting with Sweetness, I was about six months along with Light, they were having one of said parties and I met a guy. We'll call him Norm because I can't remember his name.

Anyway, Norm lived in a cabin outside of Nome. And just for clarity, Nome has a population of, like, thirteen, so to live outside of Nome... well, that's one spicy a-meatball. Anyway, at the party where I met Norm for the first and only time, he saw fit to tell me the story of how he came down to Anchorage for a night some years past, went to the Bush Club (use your imagination, it'll serve you well) and managed in one night to knock up a stripper (subtext of conversation: "I've got swimmers!" My text: "Ew!") So, being the stand-up guy he is, Norm brought the stripper to his cabin outside of Nome to have the baby. Predictably, although Norm still seemed a little shocked when he recounted the story for me, she took off and left him.

Or, possibly, she's still somewhere... outside of Nome.

I hate to burst the Alaskan Man bubble, and again I say I'm sure there are some great, normal, available guys kicking around in the Great North. I'm just saying that God forbid I should ever become single again... I'm heading south.

Posted by Lani at 6:04 AM | Comments (6)

Comments

Posted by: Michelle C at July 16, 2006 8:42 AM

Posted by: Beth at July 16, 2006 1:21 PM

Posted by: Lani at July 16, 2006 8:37 PM

Posted by: Michelle C at July 18, 2006 3:08 PM

Posted by: janet at July 18, 2006 7:26 PM

Posted by: sheryl at July 19, 2006 9:07 PM