Today, my wife and I go through the motions. It's never gotten so bad for either of us to step out, but it isn't the way it once was between us. It's ... life that could have been different, had I made a different choice.In 1990, I was nineteen and alive and living the last free summer between high school and the real world, a timeless limbo between the innocence of youth and the responsibility of adulthood. This is my moment. The one I can't forget. The one that plays over and over again in my. It said, "Be ready for anything."Ok? Girls are bad enough when I don't understand them. Now she is giving me some code?We had just finished refueling when I heard some more very short code words from the pilots to someone. We turned hard before the engines started to get loud again. They stayed that way for a long time and then it was suddenly quiet. We were still moving very fast, if not faster, than before. I don't know how I knew it, I could sort of just feel it. All of the sudden we slowed. “Val’ba’ra’nay.”“Oh!” Baker exclaimed, “I get it! It’s a ... fuck, what’s it called?” he said as he snapped his fingers. “A suffix, that’s it. It’s calling you an Earthling, ‘nay’ is a suffix.”“So their planet is called ‘Valbara’?”Baker nodded emphatically, eating another forkful of pie.“Valbara,” Jaeger mused, “that would make them Valbarans. Finally, something I can report to Doctor Evans to prove that I haven’t been goofing off.”“They’re learning fast,” Baker said, “it’s a little scary. “I told her to bring us a Coke and let us have a minute to look at the menu, you want me to help you order?”“No, I will order for us, is that OK Rico?”“Yes, let me pick it out though.”They sat looking on the same menu, though there was another one lying on the table.They talked over each and every item on the lunch page and turned it over. They went back to the one they liked best as Jaidyn came back with our drinks.“Have you decided on what you’d like?” she asked them, then smiled at me.“Yes.