@wandeljw,
Quote:My father was studying to be a Roman Catholic priest and teaching at a
Catholic high school.
You're no scientist wande. I was looking at the idea of the unlikely chance happening which was critical in bringing our parents into conjunction and thus causing the subsequent spin-offs.
In my case it was the missed penalty. One could argue that it was actually the disputed offside decision moments earlier which led to a free kick being punted up field into the opposite goalmouth where the foul for which the penalty was given was committed. One might even go back to where the numbered balls were drawn out of the bag which decided which team was playing which and where.
It is studying Darwin's theory that makes it not only easy to bring this sort of approach to bear but to ensure that it is impossible not to. And in doing so providing a demonstration of how absurdly over-simplified Darwin makes the story of life. We can hardly get our heads around our own gestation never mind that of millions of species over billions of years.
What was it in your case which might be said to be your version of the missed penalty. Or the drawing of the balls from the bag. That moment in time on which our destiny is the inverted pyramid: if you don't mind a little poetic flourish.
And now I'll give any budding writers out there a literary lesson courtesy of Henry Fielding. You can use your imagination. You can make it up. Not that I did. The only rule is that it could have happened to somebody in the positions the parents were in. Nothing unusual or fanciful. Something one might see happening to oneself in the general drift of things.
It could have been the extra double gin your father had been reluctantly persuaded to accept from a parishioner wishing to ingratiate himself with the Almighty. He did set aside a vocation after all and it was one which he knew eschewed the lusts of the flesh. In the face of a vast world giving abundant evidence of how tempting they are. Just "at a social gathering" doesn't get the people in motion. It's extremely common for people to meet at social gatherings.
I could go to town on the scene at your social gathering from an irreducible complexity point of view. If only to explain irreducible complexity.
I'm undecided on two games. Is jet lag ever a factor?