James Smallwood Art

	Tell us about a time you were surprised by a child arrival My wife and I had already been through one successful pregnancy as proud members of America’s armed forces on the frontiers of freedom, so we figured we knew how this sort of thing went. But as the little Opel we were riding in bounced along on the cobblestones of Stuttgart, Germany, at about 5 a.m. one cold October day, my very pregnant Army wife beside me stated matter-of-factly: “Pull over, I’m gonna have this kid right here.” And there, on the corner of Urbanstrasse and Neckarstrasse, she did. The scene eventually normalized at the local military hospital, but, because we planned to photograph the evidence for posterity, we kept the car untouched. Later, I left my wife and new daughter at the hospital and headed home with a neighbor and her 7-year-old son, who had accepted a ride to the housing area. In light of the condition of the front seat of the car, they, of course, took the back seat. The mother and I prattled on about the birth earlier that morning, but the little boy just stared into the front passenger seat and, with eyes the size of platters, loudly whispered: What did they do, Mommy, kill the stork?

	Tell us about a time when you had just the right thing in your pocket In the mid-1982, U.S. Army soldiers judge a man by the size of his knife. Rambo and Crocodile Dundee had set a high standard for bladed weapons. So when my unit set out from Fort Bragg for a four-day field exercise, my barracks mates brought along bowie knives, "Arkansas toothpicks" and other impressive cutters. I pocketed a Swiss army knife. Everyone laughed. "You got screwdrivers on that thing," a fellow soldier said. "Those'll help, if we're attacked by communist carpenters." Training in the North Carolina woods passed without incident, until, as we were packing up to leave, we tried to take apart our tents. The screws we'd slipped into roof poles four days earlier refused to budge, and no one could find our unit tool bag. The bivouac looked like a forest of starved saplings. Our captain said, "No one goes back to Fort Bragg till we break down these poles — without breaking them." Soldiers tried fitting their knives' honed edges into the slots on the screws' aluminum heads, nearly slicing off their fingers. The screws held. My Swiss army knife possessed flat-tip and a cross-tip screwdriver. I disassembled a roof pole in minutes. When other soldiers saw this, they clamored to borrow the Little Knife That Could. We soon deforested the camp. On the return trip to the garrison, no one laughed.

	Tell us about a moment that made you realize you were working too much For the past 29 years, I've been employed by a satellite communications company that deals with customers in Asia and the Pacific Rim. Because of the different time zones involved, I need to put in long hours from the office and then be available via phone and e-mail from home — all while also balancing my responsibilities as a wife and mother. Last summer, during a project that had me working especially late, I found myself checking on my daughter's two hamsters one night. As I looked in the cage, I recalled an article suggesting that the wheel and accessories should be rearranged periodically to prevent the hamsters from being bored. So I rearranged the hamster furniture, straightened the miniature tea party dishes, and checked the food and water supply. Then it dawned on me: It was close to midnight and I hadn't had dinner. The rodents had a better quality of life than I did.

	Tell us about a time you were caught snooping Growing up, my older sister and I shared a room. One year, when she was in high school and I was in middle school, her boyfriend gave her a box of chocolates for Valentine's Day. Knowing my penchant for going through and using her things, she hid it under her mattress. While my sister was working, I did my usual poking around and discovered the chocolates. I picked through them, eating the ones I liked and replacing the ones I didn't, such as the truffles. Then I put the box back and didn't think about it again. A few days later, my sister discovered that some chocolates were missing, while others bore telltale tooth marks. She tracked me down, dragged me into the bedroom and questioned me about going through her things. I finally admitted the crime. Rather than tell my parents, she took matters into her own hands: As she didn't like truffles, either, she held me down and forced me to eat all six left in the box, including the two I had returned. It was a very effective punishment. Not only did it curb my desire to root through my sister's things, but I have yet to develope a taste for chocolate truffles.