The Commissioner

I've been thinking about my friend Mark all week, and I could use a laugh, so I wanted to post a funny story.  He was a loan officer at the mortgage company I work for, and also a realtor.  When my brother Chad, a police officer, bought his house a few years ago, Mark was the one to help him.  Before he'd even had a chance to run any numbers he asked my brother how much he wanted to spend on a house.  Chad came up with an astronomical number, way higher than he could have afforded.  Mark and I started laughing, and Mark asked him, "Who do you think you are, the police commissioner?"  Ever since then, whenever I saw Mark, he'd ask me how the Commissioner was doing.  Whenever Chad came to see me in the office we'd even call him that.  It's been a long running joke that never got old.  

There's so many things that I'll never be able to hear or see again without thinking of Mark: Napoleon Dynamite, badonkadonk, and so many more I can't even put on this family friendly blog!  How he used to sit in his office in the dark with his jazz music playing.  Our annual holiday dinners at Morton's, courtesy of the big-hearted man.  Driving to Oakland with him for an A's game.

I've got a message on our home answering machine from Mark that I've saved for years - literally.  It was early 2004 and I was out on maternity leave, waiting for Lauren to arrive, the late little stinker.  Anyway, Mark and our friend Cass were out together one night after work, and they'd had a few drinks.  The message consists of them telling me how much they missed me at work, all the while fighting over who got to hold the phone.  My favorite part of it is when Mark says that Cass is so buzzed he's going to take her out to put a steak in her.  He then interrupts HIMSELF to say not a vampire stake, a real steak - like I would've thought otherwise!

I miss that man.