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Dave Paulson's Life-Personal Narrative

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And me. The sales manager cleared his throat. “Next, we have Dave Paulson…” I dropped my head. Why was the sales manager doing this to me? Unless… I could feel the eyes of those nearest me, flicking in my direction, reading the signals, thinking the same thing. Unless…he had decided to skip over me entirely and spare me the humiliation of collecting my Pig Boy unemployment prize in front of all my peers. Meanwhile, the sales manager’s voice was filling the room as he read off Dave Paulson’s impressive sales totals. Everyone in the room oohed and ahhed in all the right places, and then broke into big applause when Paulson’s race marker was moved so far ahead of everyone else, it was clear who was heading on the Caribbean Adventure cruise. “Ladies and …show more content…

“Call me Ray,” I said. 26 A WORK IN PROGRESS That night, we played the piano together, my father and me. We sat side-by-side on the bench, our shoulders touching, fumbling through a rusty repertoire from the practice lessons that my mom used to give us. With Lorraine cradled in her arms, Krista and Daniel danced, spinning in the middle of the carpet as our fingers played one off-key disaster after another. But my dad and I didn’t care. To us, the songs were sweet, the most beautiful we’d heard in years. Later, the celebration moved into my father’s kitchen for chocolate cake and ice cream. While the racket of happy voices drifted down the hall, I lingered alone in the study for a moment, gathering the old sheet music for the songs we’d been playing, putting all of it away inside the piano bench. Across the room, I spotted a sheet of yellow paper on the floor, probably knocked from the coffee table by all the dancing. I picked it up and recognized my handwriting. On the sheet were the notes I’d taken on the very first day that I returned to my father’s house to start learning about sales from him. I read the important lessons he’d given me that day. I had written: “You are the

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