I Know Everything About You

I worked with a guy for twenty years. I knew his three daughters by sight and watched them progress and graduate from the school system that employed their father and me. I knew this guy's wife, his father, his mom's health history. I knew what he did in the Air Force and I knew about most of the other jobs he'd had. He was a nice person, helpful, knowledgeable, personable. He drove me crazy. He talked about himself and his life a fair bit, which I don't mind. I like getting to know people. I'm not invasive, but I'll ask questions when people tell stories. I'm not above repeating those stories (not the private ones) if I'm around a crowd that listens. For instance, the guy at work that I'm talking about was a nuclear weapons specialist. He had a picture of himself in his office, in an Air Force uniform, sitting casually atop an atomic bomb. He'd served during the Cold War. He talked honestly about how much it affected his psyche to be constantly worried about having to deploy one of…