The Irony of Fate

When I was a kid my greatest fear was getting nuked by the Soviet Union. They used to blare the air raid sirens as a weekly test at the Staniford Road fire station when I was a toddler. It scared the shit out of me. The cold war was strong stuff. Even as late as my freshman year of high school I remember being paranoid about Nicaragua becoming the latest domino to fall to the Soviet Empire.

My wife tells me that when she was a kid in the Soviet Union, her greatest fear was of getting nuked my America. As a very small child she waved the red flag at parades.

When the Soviet Union, which was supposed to be godless, fell apart, my wife's city of Baku Azerbaijan was besieged by roving gangs of young Muslim men intolerant of her family's Christian religion and ethnic Armenian heritage. Her family had to flee. First to Armenia, then Russia. Then here to Burlington.

Nearly six years ago now, I placed an ad seeking a roommate in the Seven Days classifieds. My wife took the apartment, and we were engaged within three days. Her family watches this old Russian movie called "The Irony of Fate" at Christmas time.

The irony of fate. You can't make this stuff up.