Advertising was Beside the Point

So there i was at 19 and 20 with a job some people would kill for and me not really conscious of what an incredible group of people I was working with and for.   Besides,  I had other things on my mind.  Friends, women (one in particular) and increasingly, the urge to travel.   Within a year, my salary reached a very respectable level and I could pretty much do what i wanted.    I saved a lot of what I was paid and then, at 21 quit my job at DDB and set off for Europe, first stop Paris.

I had met a very nice woman at DDB -- my secretary actually.   Not a private secretary, of course, she worked for  five other people.  But she liked me best.  In fact, it turned out she was a bit obsessed.  Let's call her Ellen.   Ellen and I had talked about my plans to quit and explore Europe and she said something along the lines of, I wish I could go with you.  Not I'M GOING WITH YOU,  just a wish, she said.  But on my third night at the Esmeralda Hotel,  on the left bank,  facing directly out on Notre Dame, there came a knock at my door.  To my utter astonishment, it was Ellen who had either misunderstood what we said to each other or was completely insane.

It was Ellen's fantasy that we were going to travel around Europe together, as a couple.  I was flabbergasted.  I was frightened.  I had no idea flabbergasted had two 'b's'.   At any event, I told Ellen she had made a terrible mistake and that i wasn't going to travel anywhere with anyone.  That was kind of the point of traveling, wasn't it?  Ellen had a different view.  In her view I had promised to travel with her and a promise is a promise.

Late one evening, while Ellen slept, I slipped out of the room at the hotel, with my knapsack and took the next available train to Rome.  Rome, where i knew people with a villa, friends of my parents.  I realize now that I did not choose the manly, up-front way to handle the Ellen situation.  But put yourself in my shoes.   I was totally freaked out.  After all,  Ellen was clinging to me like grim death.  I was suffocating.  So i made a run for it.  And, thank god, I got away clean.