Give Me Your Credit Card

Have you ever had one of those experiences which you can remember twenty plus years later as clearly as if it happened yesterday? I have and this story I am about to tell is an example of one of those experiences.

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My dad and I lost our wives 17 days apart so during the recovery process (perhaps this is not the right word to use to describe the challenges we faced) we had a lot in common and had some great talks. Both of our wives had been gone for slightly longer than one year.

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I distinctly remember one evening when he and I were at my sister Syd’s house (she is the youngest and perhaps the most gregarious child in my mom and dad’s family). Anyway, this particular evening we had just finished a nice meal and were sitting around talking.

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Sydnie asked me if I had ever thought of using a dating site as a means of finding someone to date and perhaps even marry. I assured her that I had not and strongly reinforced my dislike of them and the fear I had of getting involved in anything like that. She laughed at me and called me old-fashioned and told me that I needed to get a life and I should take a chance.

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While she was giving me the business, I noticed that she left my dad alone and accepted his decision to just enjoy life as it was. I was curious about why she left him alone and I don’t really remember her answer, but it was probably something like, “Well Dad is 81 years old, and he had been married for 57 years and is ok with being alone! But you are only 57 years old and have a lot of life left and you shouldn’t be alone!”

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How do you reason with logic like that? I didn’t know then and still don’t know now but I do remember that I just ignored her and before long she disappeared, and we didn’t see her again for about an hour. When she finally reappeared the only comment, she made to me was, “Calvert, give me your credit card!”

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I believe that when most people are confronted with a statement like that, the obvious question is, “Why?” with an expectation of getting a satisfactory answer before handing over the card. I mean, if I just handed out my card when people ask for it, then I would not be a financial steward for my money.

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After a bit of back-and-forth conversation about the pros and cons of such an endeavor, I relented and gave her my card. As I mentioned earlier, she is my youngest sister, and I learned early in life (like when mom and dad brought her home from the hospital) that she was not a person you could mess with. If you didn’t give her what she wanted, you would be worn down and eventually give in anyway, so I just handed her my credit card. 

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She came back with a big smile on her face and proudly announced, “Done!” and she sat down to a family conversation for the rest of the evening. And that was that!

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I didn’t know what to expect from this new adventure that she signed me up for nor did I know what she had written on the application. The only thing I vaguely remember from that night was that she asked me to write a paragraph about myself which I did but I also knew that I was embarking on something scary. Not wanting to set myself up for failure, I wrote a humorous piece about myself, and my life was about to change for the better. 

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My soon-to-be best friend, Anne Evans, was about to enter my life and eventually become my wife. 

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The day that changed my life trajectory happened three days later, on a Saturday, the weekend of Labor Day, 2005, when I got a note from Anne who had seen my post on the dating site Syd signed me up for. Naturally I was excited, and I responded quickly which led to an interesting day long conversation via email. 

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Some background information is needed here. I had just started my PhD (five days earlier), at the University of Utah, I was working as an adjunct professor at BYU and had tickets to the BYU season opener football game. I excused myself from our conversation, went to the football game, left early (it was a BYU blowout), went to my office on campus to work on my homework, and noticed Anne had sent me a message. 

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About 7:00 p.m. I was tired and hungry, so  I invited her to dinner. She agreed to meet me at one of my favorite restaurants, but when we got there, we learned it was closed for the week. I suggested an alternative restaurant that I liked (Chuck-A-Rama) but it really wasn’t the best place for a first date. After holding back a strong urge to laugh, Anne agreed to meet me there. We had a great time. 

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In fact, we enjoyed ourselves so much we lost track of the time until a couple hours later we noticed that we were the only ones left in the restaurant and the cleaning crew was giving us subtle clues that they wanted to go home. We apologized to the employees and quickly left.

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After we married, I told Anne why I chose Chuck-A-Rama which, believe it or not, was a viable and good choice. You see I had just used my credit card to pay tuition for me as well as my son along with a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of building supplies. I didn’t want to go to a restaurant and try to pay the bill and have my credit card rejected. I knew that Chuch-A-Rama took checks so I invited her to go there with me and avoid any potential embarrassment.


Happy Failing Forward,


Calvert Cazier



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