Chatham LeBlanc

Several years back my youngest brother was living in Fairfield, Conn. and we in Chatham, NJ. Though not terribly far apart, with young kids we found it difficult to get together on a regular basis so we had to plan our opportunities. 

On one such occasion we decided to meet in Manhattan at the Tribeca Grill and make a great night of the time we had. We both arranged to take the train into the city and meet for drinks first, then head over for dinner. We both arranged for cars to take us back home so that we were completely free to indulge in a couple of good bottles of wine and even an after dinner drink.  We had a most enjoyable time and shared many laughs and good discussion as is always the case with my siblings and our spouses. 

When the end of the evening arrived, we walked out of the restaurant (I believe we closed the place) and lo and behold both our cars were waiting to shuttle us home. Its truly fun pretending your rich even for just an evening. I was the first to walk out and pointed at one of the drivers and said "Chatham" and he said back to me "LeBlanc". I responded quite simply "Yes".  Everyone gave one more hug and hand shakes etc and we both got into the corresponding cars.

Our driver immediately whisked us out of the Soho area and down to the West Side Highway which seemed really odd to me as we really should have been heading into the tunnel and across to New Jersey. I looked at my wife with a fair amount of puzzlement and then said to the driver "Where are we going". He looked at me like "oh good, another drunk who doesn't remember where he lives and says simply "Fairfield".  I said to him, but we're going to Chatham, NJ. He looked at me strangely and said "I thought your name was Chatham". Just then my phone rang and it was my brother laughing hysterically. We did contemplate just continuing on the journey and surprising the kids in the morning, but they would have thought that a testament to the amount of alcohol consumed and not simply a funny circumstance. We decided on a convenient location and performed a very quick exchange while laughing all the while. It does occur to me that neither of the drivers were as amused as we were but then again perhaps it was just the hour of the day.

In any event I've often thought that if I ever won the mega millions one of the things I'd do is change my name to Chatham. It sounds absolutely pretentious doesn't it?