admin

I've travelled most of my career. The first few years it was mostly by air and, of course, I was met with flight delays, bad weather, lost luggage, all the wonderful things that air travel brings in such abundance.

The last ten years or so, however, I have been responsible for a much smaller geographical area which I mostly cover by car. Believe me, it's a blessing, I depart when I want to and I know my luggage will arrive when and where I do. I love it.

Now, I could never claim that the life of a traveling salesman, no matter how many jokes you've heard, is filled with naked farmer's daughters and wild sex in haylofts and the like. But, once in a while, things can happen. That was exactly what happened two years ago last May in Moline, Illinois. Moline, for the many millions who wouldn't have a clue where it is, lies just over one hundred and fifty miles almost exactly due west of Chicago, right on the border with the state of Iowa. Across the Mississippi River from Moline is Davenport, Iowa.

I have a number of customers in the Moline/Davenport area so I get there about every two to three months and stay for several days.

It was a Tuesday and I was staying at the Radisson Hotel near the river and, after a day of calling on customers, was enjoying a refreshing gin and tonic in the hotel bar and looking forward to returning home on Friday to my wife of eighteen years, still as attractive as when we first met, even if, as happens to most, I suppose, our sex life had tapered off some over the years. It was good, really, just, well, not what it was in the beginning.

I was making some notes into my laptop as I sat at the bar, just finishing my second G