No Further Opportunities Wasted

Life can be cruel and unforgiving. At least that’s what I use to believe. My own life had been stale and without direction for years but I had allowed my life to become that way. Acts of childhood trauma and cruelty had spilled over into my adulthood. I was unable to let go of my pain from years long since past and it was now controlling my adulthood. I had walled myself into a life of self imposed isolation and protectionism. I had friends, but they were kept at arms length. My inability to grow as a person and to do the things I had always dreamed of, seemed just out of reach. I simply wasn’t good enough.




The mechanism for change in my life happened one night, and I didn’t even know it.



I couldn’t even tell you exactly what I was doing the evening it all started. It was a night no different than the previous night or the night before that. The TV was on in the living room and I could clearly hear it when I was in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner. It was the sound of Phil’s voice that grabbed my attention. Phil Keoghan was the host one of my favorite shows, The Amazing Race, and my first thought was it was an ad for the next season. I dropped what I was doing and sprinted to the living room to find out what date The Amazing Race was starting. It took no time at all to realize this was not an ad for The Amazing Race, but something entirely different. A show called No Opportunity Wasted, but more importantly, it was looking for Canadian applicants!



I was ecstatic! I didn’t even finish watching the commercial. If Phil was associated with the show I knew I wanted to apply. I ran upstairs to the computer and quickly logged on to the NOW (No Opportunity Wasted) website and spent the next three hours filling out the application form in detail. Part of the application even required a You Tube video of your self. Even though I am a bit of a geek when it comes to computers, posting videos is not something I had ever done before and it took me a while to figure it out. At one point during the application process I considered walking away entirely. I had numerous beers in me and my patience for minor technical glitches was diminishing rapidly. Walking away from it seemed like a good idea, but something told me to keep going, after all I did have three hours invested into the process.



When I finally completed my application to my satisfaction, I hit submit, and went to bed, forgetting that I had ever applied for the mysterious show in the first place.



It was the beginning of July before I would hear the words No Opportunity Wasted uttered to me again. Early one afternoon I was watching Star Trek Voyager when my phone rang. I had been extremely sick that week and I wasn’t really in the mood to speak with anyone; and I’m never in the mood to speak with telemarketers. The only person I would make an exception for when answering the phone that week was my good friend Darlene. When I glanced at the ringing phone the caller ID indicated it was an Ontario number. Darlene uses calling cards to call me and when she calls it comes up as an Ontario number. It was reflexive; I hit talk, and answered the phone.



“May I speak with Mark Fuson please?” The woman politely asked.



I began to tense up when I realized it wasn’t Darlene. In past when I had been cornered by telemarketers I would usually just hang up, but for some reason I didn’t this time, at least not right away. “Who may I ask is calling?” I grumbled into the phone.



“This is Mercedez from No Opportunity Wasted.”



I didn’t let the intruder get any further. I hastily stated “I have no interest in your products or services, please take may name off your list.” And with that, I hung up.



I sat there on my couch for a few moments, briefly returning my attention to Captain Janeway and the USS Voyager. But something was wrong, and I couldn’t quite decide what it was. There was something extremely familiar about what the woman on the phone had said. What had she said? I racked my brain trying to remember who she said she represented. It was the term “wasted” that kept repeating itself over and over in my brain.



Could that be that television show I applied for? I thought to myself.



I made my way upstairs shaking my head at the realization that I may have closed the door on something very special even before it started. It took no time at all to confirm in my email records that the show I had applied for was No Opportunity Wasted, and without a doubt the woman named Mercedez had said: No Opportunity Wasted!



I shouted obscenities at my computer, as if it was to blame. Thumping my head against the desk a few times an idea popped into my head; I guess I knocked some sense into me. I had the number in my caller ID, I could call Mercedez back. It was a good idea, but I thought there were some problems with it. What if she wouldn’t speak to me? What if the phone number didn’t work? What if she was angry with me?



Maybe I should just forget about it? I screwed up.



I held the phone in my hand debating whether I should make the call. At the last second I decided I would try calling the number back. Part of why I had applied for the show in the first place was to help build self-confidence. If I didn’t make the call, I was in essence failing at what I wanted to improve about myself.



I took a chance and a few minutes later I had Mercedez back on the phone. She was very understanding, and glad that I had called back. She said she was just in the process of marking my file with a big “DO NOT CALL, IS NOT INTERESTED!” across the front. Mercedez also said she had just finished telling everyone in the office that I was really scary on the phone.



How can you change a person’s first impression of you when that first impression made them think you’re scary? It actually wasn’t that hard. Mercedez and I spoke on the phone for a solid half an hour. Our conversation was more like an informal interview than an interrogation. Mercedez was simply asking questions that elaborated on my original application. I was candid with her and answered her questions as fully as I could. Despite our rocky start I felt a good rapport with Mercedez towards the end of our conversation.



One question Mercedez asked me really touched a nerve. I knew what my answer was, and it bothered me because I had never done anything about it.



“If there was another job you could do in life, what would that be?”



A writer, hands down, no further thought needed. I had always enjoyed creative writing, even when I was a kid. Not only did I enjoy writing, but many people over the years had told me that I was pretty good at it. Even in my current career as a Correctional Officer I had been commended by staff on how creative I could be when writing what was suppose to be a serious report. For all the enjoyment writing gave me, I never pursued it. I wasn’t good enough, my spelling needed work, and my grammar wasn’t the best; why waste my time with it?



“You are a good writer!” Mercedez said. “Your application was one of the best written out of 6000.”



Mercedez caught me off guard, because I knew the truth about my application. “I was drunk when I wrote that.” I admitted.



We both laughed at my admission. It was true though and I wasn’t going to hide from it.



Mercedez concluded our call by asking if I had any questions. I’m not sure what my rationale was but I decided right then and there that I didn’t want to ask anything; I wanted to know absolutely nothing about the show. As it was I never even finished watching the original commercial with Phil Keoghan. I had absolutely no idea what the premise of the show even was. I decided if I was advancing in the application process I would do so blind.



When I hung up with Mercedez I never expected to hear from her again. At the beginning of July I was only short listed to a hundred people, at least that’s what Mercedez said. Even on the shortlist my odds of being selected weren’t great. I wasn’t pessimistic about my odds; I was just being more of a realist. I didn’t put a lot of stock in my chances. In fact it wasn’t until mid July that I even mentioned I had applied for NOW to a single person. The only people I told were Darlene and my friend Bryan. I tell Darlene everything and Bryan was part of my NOW application and had to be told. Part of the application required you name one person who could clear your schedule without you knowing about it. NOW was about showing up in your life unexpectedly and taking you away, so your schedule had to be completely cleared in advance. I selected Bryan to be the “go to” guy because we work together and he would know how to clear my schedule and keep it a secret from me.



I continued on with my life. Bryan and Darlene didn’t have a lot to say about NOW; I guess they felt my chances weren’t that great either. Once again No Opportunity Wasted faded from my mind. I continued on with my summer seldom giving it a second thought.



In late July I decided to go on a road trip by myself. I was feeling drained from work and I was at my wits end with how my life was going. The money was tight but I was able to come up with enough cash to go away camping for a week. There was no real destination planned although I did want to go to Grand Cache, Alberta to check out the town and prison. I was considering transferring to Grand Cache the following year if I liked what I saw.



My first day out took me all the way up to Valemount, British Columbia. It’s a small town on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Overall it was an unremarkable area with few good views of the mountains but it was an appropriate place to camp. I hadn’t camped in years but I was sure I could remember the basics. As a way of saving money I decided to camp at forestry camp sites which traditionally don’t charge money or they charge very little. Pickings were slim around Valemount for forestry sites but I found one ten kilometers off the highway. It was a strange place because there was only one camp site! Never had I ever seen a camp ground with only one site. There was a picnic table, fire pit and outhouse but zero neighbors. I was reluctant to set up camp so far in the woods with no other campers near by, but it was probably a free site and that was in my budget.



That evening I set up camp, made dinner and sat around reading travel brochures. I even stooped to a new low with camping and set up my portable DVD player and watched Married with Children. It was Sunday evening and Valemount had no beer and wine store, so I was stone cold sober. At 9:00pm that night I went to bed out of boredom. I was kind of sad, lonely and not having a particularly good time. I don’t know what made me do it, but I actually asked out loud for guidance from my mom who had passed away in 1999. I told her I felt like I was lost, and I needed help. I drifted off to sleep a short time later.



Sometime after midnight I woke to the sound of something walking around the outside of my tent. I froze in place as a wave of chills passed through my body. It sounded like a slow, methodical, shuffle on the gravel. It seemed to be circling me. Was it an animal, or a person? I remained quiet knowing it was probably an animal and that any aggressive action might startle whatever it was. I kept still and eventually the sound went away. My nerves kept me awake for a little while longer but finally I slipped into sleep again.



I have no idea what time it was. What had woke me the second time was not the sound of something circling the tent, but instead, something inside the tent with me. My body entered full rigor mortis. My sleeping bag, at the top near my head, was pulled three distinct times in succession. The tugs were hard enough that the sleeping bag went taut with each tug. I knew there was nothing that could have caused that sensation. There was nothing in the tent with me, other than the feeling that there was something in the tent.



Nothing else happened after the sleeping bag incident. At first light I packed up camp and hit the road. I was a little on edge from the experience but I still had my wits. As I flew down the highway out of Valemount a strange form of dread appeared in my gut. At first I brushed the feeling off as a residual from the happening overnight, but the feeling continued to grow as I made my way east over the Rockies. My intent that day was to go directly to Grand Cache where I would spend the night giving me plenty of time to check out the town. In Jasper the feeling of dread grew to the point I began to feel sick but I pressed on. Outside of Hinton Alberta is the turn off for Grand Cache. As I passed the first distance sign the phrase “turn around!” began repeating itself over and over in my head. The repetitions came faster and louder the further up the road I went. Finally I caved, with 120 kilometers to go, I turned around. As soon as my car was facing south and moving away from Grand Cache, the feeling completely dissipated.



I drove hundreds of kilometers that day and never once did the feeling of dread return. That afternoon I found myself at Whiteswan Provincial Park near Cranbrook British Columbia. I soaked my bones in the natural hot springs and thought about what had happened earlier in the day. All I could do was take it as a message, maybe from my Mom. I knew I had done the right thing by turning around, I only wonder how much further up the road I would had to have gone before the feeling of dread would have been meaningless. Was there a logging tuck with my name on it, or was it something else?



In the East Kootenays I felt very much at home. My good friend Bryan was from the town of Kimberly and just the year before he had taken me on a trip to see where he had grown up. I remembered Kimberly from my own family holidays when I was a child. I loved the area then, and I still love it today. I felt drawn to the area and I didn’twant to leave.



I spent another day in Kimberly before returning home cutting my trip short by four days. In my own mind there were indicators that for true happiness I would one day have to live in the Kootenays. My Dad had always wanted to move the family there but he was always reluctant because of the employment situation. As an adult, I wondered if I would ever be able to live in a place that truly made me happy. Even weeks before NOW entered my life, a NOW philosophy was beginning to take shape. My trip, as short as it was, had begun to provide me with answers to solutions in my own life. I felt I was close to realizing what I needed to do, what I needed in life, but a fog still obscured the real message.



When Mercedez called the second time I was much more pleasant. It was now early August and I had been short listed to 20 potential challengers. Mercedez only had a few questions on the second call. She wanted to know what experience I had in the following: camping, public speaking, water activities, and team sports. I answered her questions in true smartass fashion. For water I answered: In the water, I’m awesome as long as it involved a “floaty” and a beer. As for team sports, I’m like a wounded horse at the Kentucky Derby – just send me to the glue factory. I think Mercedez appreciated my lightheartedness.



When I finished answering her questions she told me that this would likely be the last time we spoke. If I was selected for NOW, it would be the cameras on my doorstep that would give it away. I was reinvigorated with the news. Since I had returned from my solo camping trip I had been feeling good about life, things seemed to be improving and I had a new sense of momentum that was previously not there. For the first time I started to feel very confident that I would be going on NOW.



On August 16, Bryan asked me if I had heard anything more from the television show. I told him that I wouldn’t be hearing anything more from them; if I was being selected, he would know before I did. In my heart though I had a very good feeling about being chosen for NOW and I told Bryan that. The feeling was the opposite of my Grand Cache experience; this was a positive feeling, this was a growing feeling of certainty. Bryan didn’t pursue the matter any further.



Later that same evening Bryan asked if I would like to go to Sun Peaks Resort with him and his family on Monday. Sun Peaks was somewhere I had always wanted to go so I told him I would love to. The only catch was he wanted me up and ready to go for 7:00am so we could make a full day of it. I didn’t think his request was that unusual and I didn’t think anything more of it. The ambush plan had been set, and I didn’t even know it.



On Monday morning, August 20, I crawled out of bed, exhausted, after staring at the ceiling most of the night. For no particular reason I had a horrible sleep and now I was dragging myself around the house trying to get ready. Around twenty minutes to seven my first inclination that something was wrong floated passed my brain. I had signed up to be called for overtime at the jail, the phone should have rang around 5:00am, but it didn’t. I wasn’t going to answer the phone anyway, but the fact they didn’t even call was strange. That simple oddity made me wonder momentarily if I was being ambushed, but I quickly discarded that thought.

More to come...