Ricardo

Let me start this blog by saying that I’m a big believer in fate. I believe that fate played a part in my California Brother, Dean, needing more time to write his guest blog and me sharing “Trapped in a Loveless Marriage” last week instead. My ability to tie that post in with my upcoming third wedding anniversary worked wonders! My clickbait marketing scheme earned me more than 350 views in the first twenty-four hours of that post’s publication! It has since gone on to become my THIRD most read blog of ALL time and I’ve published seventy! Needless to say, I couldn’t be happier with these remarkable results! I just can’t help but look back at how it all unfolded and think that fate most certainly had a hand at the stellar situation the universe gifted me.

For me though, that’s the thing about fate, I don’t feel like I ever recognize it in the moment, but only after the events have already unfolded. This is why I firmly believe that the friendship I’m about to showcase in this post was brought about because of fate. There are just too many coincidences for me to believe anything otherwise.

It’s my honest opinion that quite literally everything about the way in which Ricardo, or “Richie” as he often goes by, and I became friends could best be described as an act of fate. I’m absolutely certain that the universe wanted for us to be friends and after you’ve finished reading this post in commemoration of his upcoming birthday, you’ll be certain of it too.

I met Richie back in May of 2016 when the two of us were in the same orientation training class for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Funny thing about that though, I wasn’t actually supposed to be in that class, I should’ve been in the one that occurred the week before. I gave Macy’s my two week notice and finished out my time with them, but rather than start the very next week with Enterprise, I opted to take a bonus vacation between the two jobs. Enterprise corporate had initially scheduled me for orientation training during my self-imposed bonus vacation week, but fortunately for me, my Enterprise Area Manager was able to sort everything out properly. I’m telling you all – this is fate! If I didn’t decide I wanted that impromptu vacation and Melissa had not of come out to California during it, I would never of even met Richie and I wouldn’t have been able to propose to Melissa at the time I did. Our proposal obviously led to our wedding, which I promise you will play some key importance later.

All in all, Enterprise had a pretty decent training program. We were put up in a hotel for five nights in Anaheim (conveniently close to Disneyland I might add) and would head to the regional headquarters Monday through Friday for a classroom style training experience. Richie and I were two of six in our group and after class each day, we would all return to the hotel and work on our homework together before all heading to dinner. So while the other four people from our orientation aren’t at all relevant to this story, it should be noted that I actually liked each one of them perfectly fine. In fact, it was Richie that I initially cared for the least of the bunch.

In order to understand why I felt this way though you have to understand something about Enterprise first. The entire company THRIVES off competition amongst coworkers and that was abundantly clear from day one. They absolutely love for their employees to compete against one another in what I would best describe as a culture of inner-turmoil. It’s a system that I later learned to scorn, but for that first week, I allowed myself to go with the flow and have some fun with what I thought was just a little friendly competition. It wasn’t till I was placed at my branch that I realized this insane way of doing business is the only way they do business, but that’s another story for another time.

Richie is one of the most competitive individual’s I’ve ever known and he immediately thrived off this platform. Thank goodness for that too given that here we are four years later and he’s still with Enterprise and I’m very much not. Our orientation trainers told us in the very first minute that one of us would finish top of class and receive what they made out to be this super elite padfolio they kept touting endlessly all week long. Right away it became abundantly clear that Richie wanted that padfolio most and he proved he was willing to do what it took to earn it.

Well, earn it he did. No doubt about it, Richie worked much harder than any of us (read this as kissed the most ass) that week to earn a name for himself amongst the Enterprise top brass. I’m all about giving credit though when credit is due and I must definitely commend him because he and our peers truly had to work overtime to stand out that week amongst the clear leader of the pack: yours truly.

I mean, unfortunately for all my classmates, they didn’t come to orientation equipped with a beautiful story and equally beautiful picture showcasing how they just got engaged at Disneyland the week prior. Those Enterprise people ate my engagement story up and I inevitably shared that photo with everyone in the building by the week’s end because those trainers had everyone asking me to see it. I was a real hit that week, I’m not even going to pretend otherwise, so poor Richie definitely had his work cut out for him, but he certainly managed to make his mark.

Now following that week of training, I really only talked to Richie a small handful of times over text and our conversations were always limited to our individual Enterprise experiences. Our brief texts never really strayed off the topic of work, but all that changed once I got married.

Melissa and I wed on July 29, 2017, which coincidentally, July 29 just so happens to be Richie’s birthday! I told you all that our wedding would end up being of importance! What an interesting coincidence that turned out to be given that I only ended up meeting him because I took that bonus vacation week to propose to Melissa! I’m telling you, this friendship is fate! Well, on my wedding day and his birthday, Richie sent me an extraordinarily nice message congratulating me on my marriage. It was unexpectedly wonderful and if I can be perfectly honest, this was the first time I actually saw Richie as an actual human being and not just another Enterprise robot.

Even though I added him as a “friend” across social media and realized that he was an actual person with an actual heart and not just a collection of robotic parts all fueled by the green machine, we still didn’t really talk a whole lot more than we had been. Then in March of 2019 when Melissa and I were vacationing in California, we were at Disneyland one Sunday and I saw on Richie’s Instagram story that coincidentally he was too! Again, this is fate! Immediately I sent him a message letting him know we were in the park and would love to meet up. Not long thereafter we did just that and after a nice, albeit brief talk, we made plans for Richie to join us the following Sunday when we returned to Disney.

That next Sunday with Richie was a blast, however, it did give me my first real hint at his poor tastes. I’ll never forget us all standing there in line for Pirates of the Caribbean listening to him tell us that he didn’t like The Haunted Mansion because he thought it was boring. Um… WHAT!?! That’s my second favorite ride of ALL time! It’s like Halloween all year in there and everyone knows Halloween is THE BEST holiday! How could anyone not LOVE that ride!?!

After our dual Sunday’s in Disney, Richie and I started conversing more and more, but it wasn’t until Disney’s live-action Aladdin hit theaters that May that our friendship truly kicked into overdrive. Richie’s resemblance to Aladdin’s Mena Massoud is uncanny. You cannot not see this! Literally the first thing I did after leaving the theater opening night was message Richie telling him that he NEEDED to audition for the role of Aladdin at Disneyland! I mean, who in the world wouldn’t want to work at The Happiest Place on Earth making people’s dreams come true!?!

Well, audition he did and because they do their casting in a radically different way than imagined, he unfortunately didn’t make the cut – definitely their loss! He was and still is the perfect fit! Let’s be for real here, had Mena of been visiting the park and seen Richie in the Aladdin attire, he most certainly would’ve had to double-check himself that he wasn’t standing before a mirror! There’d probably end up being viral stories claiming actor Mena Massoud was pulling a Johnny Depp and walking around Disneyland as his theatrical character! So even though Richie didn’t end up getting cast as Aladdin, he did get a new friend from our constant texting back and forth every single day leading to his open casting call and I can assure you this, he ain’t never had a Friend Like Me!

Circling back to Richie’s poor tastes, I’m going to tell you all something about him that you absolutely need to know, but I’m going to do so delicately as to not offend my friend: Richie has taste for shit.

I swear to you, he’s lived with the Coronavirus his entire life. One of COVID-19’s prominent symptoms is having no taste and that’s definitely Richie. He barely knew who Céline Dion was; he claims to not love Britney Spears; he likes country music and In-&-Out Burger; his favorite movies are a bunch that I’ve never even seen and in some cases, never even heard of; I could go on and on, but you get the point. Despite his clear distaste for nearly all things good, Richie himself is a good person with a good heart – not a robotic part – which is why this friendship has evolved into one of my best.

As fate would have it, I started rewriting my book, Shithead, right around the time Richie and I started conversing on the daily and ever since Richie’s been one of my most supportive and encouraging friends. He would regularly check-in on the progress of my writing and would always encourage me to press on and finish. I could ALWAYS count on his positivity and now that I’ve completed the writing of my book, he’s still pushing me forward in my endeavor to land a literary agent and publisher. I’m eternally grateful and thankful for his unwavering support. There aren’t too many others like him and I will NEVER forget those who have continued driving my success.

So even though Richie and I may bicker and battle about ridiculous things like him stating St. Louis is one of the top ten most dangerous cities in the world (it’s not), or whether Hamilton is a great play (it isn’t), I still love and adore my friend and could not be more thankful that fate was determined to bring about our friendship. All those coincidences and random run-ins was undoubtedly the universe telling us that this friendship was meant to be. I genuinely cannot imagine the last year or so of my life without him in it. So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RICHIE! I look forward to celebrating many, many more, for you my friend are SIMPLY THE BEST!

As always, THANK YOU ALL for reading! PLEASE feel free to leave a comment or birthday wish below! I’ll be certain to share them all with the upcoming birthday boy! Given that July 29 is also mine and Melissa’s third anniversary, I’ll be sharing a special photographic post next week that’ll showcase some of my absolute favorite pictures from our wedding! I can’t wait for that, but until then, I hope each and every single one of you has THE BEST week ever! Oh, and WEAR YOUR MASK! WASH YOUR HANDS! SOCIAL DISTANCE! WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!