How a Booger Got My Husband a Job

The longest ten weeks of my life began on a cold & windy November afternoon.  That was the afternoon when I thought I would come unglued.  At 27 weeks pregnant and two games left in our football season, my husband was fired from a job that he poured his heart & soul into.  In one short meeting, his identity as “football coach” was erased.

No one ever knows what to say to someone in a job loss situation {or any loss for that matter}.  Common words are “Where God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.”  BUT, in our case… God sent a booger.  Yes, a booger.  A nasty, hard in your nose, “how do you not feel that?!”, go fix yourself up kind of booger.

At the beginning of January, we took our family circus on a little road trip to Nashville for the AFCA convention.  When we arrived, we had a very short list of opportunities that we were praying might come to fruition.  And by short list, I mean like “post-it note short”.

Being at convention was exhausting, especially for me at 35 weeks pregnant.  The multi-acre hotel is one in which you could easily become lost within its gardens and atriums and hallways.  Every grand staircase looks like the previous one, so when Coach arrived at the hotel to meet us, he was lost & frustrated.

“Don’t move.  I’ll find you,” I said.  And I did, naturally, because my internal GPS is rarely wrong.  And when I laid eyes on him, I thought I would die.

My husband has never been known for his sense of style, but imagine my horror to find that he was job hunting wearing a dingy shirt with pit stains and slacks with a hole at the pocket.  We started walking towards the expo hall when I also noticed that he had a huge booger in his nose.

“Babe, you have a booger in your nose,” I told him on the escalator.  Just short of blowing a snot rocket right there on the moving stairs, the debris was still not cleared.  ”It’s still there.  How do you not feel that?” I asked, matching his annoyance level.

“When we get up here, Ellie has to go potty.  Go to the bathroom and get it out, then wait for us,” I demanded.  I could feel my anxiety level rising as I helped Ellie in the bathroom… how’s a man supposed to get a job wearing a nasty a$$ shirt?  Did he get dressed in the dark?  I can’t believe we paid to have that shirt dry cleaned.  How did I not miss that shirt when I was throwing away his old clothes?

When we came out of the bathroom, Coach was chatting with a familiar face.  ”Were your ears burning?”  I heard the man ask.  ”We were just talking about you.”

Long story, short:  this man is our new head coach.  And if it weren’t for that pesky booger and my incessant nagging {you’re welcome, honey}, they would have never crossed paths in that five acre hotel.

And I have just two things to say about that:  Thank you, God…

and Go Bears!

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