When I first met Dottie she worked in a hardware store. She made very little money but she knew where everything was in the store.

She knew lots of jokes and was liked by all the customers.

When she became a member she would scrimp and save to go to the conventions and to Japan. She never missed an event.

She was ambitious. She was tired of being poor.

She moved on to get a job at an insurance agency and, at night, studied to be a barber. After passing the barber exam, she quit her job at the insurance agency and became a barber full time.

Eventually she got a job at the same barber shop that the president used. Very upscale.

One day she called me and told me that she got a one hundred-dollar tip. She was elated. I asked her to check it for strings. Later, the guy who gave her the tip asked her out. She accepted.

Two weeks later, she knocked on my front door and said, "Come here, I want to show you something." She showed me a brand new BMW. I asked: "Who's car is this?" (She had owned an old Escort with rust spots on the side.) She said: "Read the license plate." The license plate read: "Dottie."

I asked, "Did you get this from the same guy who gave you the tip?" She said "Yes." I said, "He might be serious about you."

She took me for a spin and told me about her whirlwind relationship with Artie.

I did not see her for about a year.

Then one day she came to the house and said, "Will you chant with me?" "Of course," I replied.

As we were chanting, I could hear her sobbing, so I stopped chanting and asked her what was wrong. Tears were running down her cheeks.

She explained "After I met Artie, I stopped chanting because I had everything I wanted. When I was poor and had nothing all I wanted was to live in a nice house and have a decent car. Even though I had no money, I had lots of friends and traveled all over the world with the Gakkai doing lots of activities. Now I have a nice car and a nice house but we never go anywhere or do anything. We just sit around the house and drink."

After she got it all off her chest, we chanted some more. When I rang the bell to end, she asked if we could chant some more and, of course, we did.