"My One and Only Chance"

**Rick In San Jose** · December 24th, 2015, 01:38 AM

“My One and Only Chance”

The small room, of indistinct and vague configuration, contained two long tables arranged parallel to one another. On one of the tables were stacks of thin, saddle-stitched booklets, 5.5” x 8.5”, with covers of various colors. Only two people were in the room: Me and Michelle Kwan. Attired in a blue-black sweatsuit with a long-sleeved jacket, she wasn’t today’s Michelle, but, rather, the Michelle of 2005 or so.

My task in the room seemed to be to help Michelle sort through the various booklets. Pointing to a stack of booklets with pink covers, she said, “No, I don’t want those,” whereupon I placed the pink booklets into a cardboard box on one of the tables. She also didn’t want a stack of blue-covered booklets, which I placed into the same box.

When we came to a stack of yellow-covered booklets, however, she said, “Yes, I want to keep those,” and I placed them into a different cardboard box. For some reason I couldn’t see the title on the yellow booklets. However, I could see that the front cover of this booklet included a waist-up portrait of Michelle, in which she was wearing the same blue-black sweatsuit. My impression was that Michelle was the author of the yellow booklet.

As I was boxing up the yellow booklets, our sorting task nearing its conclusion, I thought to myself, You know, this is almost certainly the only time that I will ever see Michelle Kwan in person in my lifetime -- and so my one and only chance to ask Michelle for an autographed photo of her.

With that, I turned to Michelle, gathered up my courage -- and was just about to ask her for an autographed photo when I awoke from this short dream on the morning of December 23, 2015.

Climbing out of bed, disappointed that my dream had been cut short, I happened to look down at my bedside table. And with that I received a titanic shock, the surprise of my lifetime. For there, resting on the table, was an autographed photo of Michelle, on which she had inscribed:

“To Rick -- Thanks for Your Help with the Booklets! XOXO Michelle Kwan.”