The Lede: What (are you doing!?)

It all started over a bowl of popcorn so heavily doused in vinegar it made my eyes water.  Jordan and I were celebrating the weekly holiday of “Friday” at the Porter, a beer pub in Atlanta that looks like the interior of a long, narrow, wooden ship.  Enough beers and it can start swaying like one, too.

 I had practiced my sales pitch.  I was ready to drop subtle hints, make him think it was his idea.  Instead, I blurted out, “Sooo, I’ve been thinking that we should quit our jobs and travel the world for a year.”

His jaw hit the deck. Mine did too at the completely ham-handed way I’d just done that.  All, however, was not lost. I had come prepared.  I had preliminary budgets and itineraries, blogs from other people who had done the same and hadn’t returned to live in a cardboard box underneath an overpass.  We were young, without children or debt, and free of any encumbrance save an energetic dachshund.  After setting forth my case, I sat, eyeing at Jordan, waiting like a gladiator for the thumbs up or thumbs down.

Jordan threw some popcorn into his mouth, chewed slowly, and then said, “Any of those places you mentioned have good food?”

Bingo.

We did, that night and many others afterward, discuss and analyze the pros and cons of this trip at length.  But I knew that night at the Porter that it was simply a matter of “when”, not “if.”

Next up:  Our introductory The Lede series continues with When and Where — our itinerary.