September 9th, 2008 by Hiland
The last 24 hours have been interesting- not life changing or anything, but just a weird series of things that make one realize just how bizarre the interconnectedness of life can be- like how in New York you can travel half a mile and be in a completely different culture.
Last night I went to the dentist to have a crown put in to replace the chipped tooth I’ve had for years. He takes an impression of the tooth and then gives me a temporary tooth until the “real’ one is ready. I go home and go to bed after watching some TV.
Now, today (Tuesday), was supposed to go like this: My boss (he’s in Chicago) was flying into Newark Airport so we could go to a sales meeting at a potential client’s in New Jersey. The plan is for me to take a train to a town in New Jersey, and then he’d pick me up in the rental car when he gets into Newark. We’d meet another co-worker to do the sales pitch, and then he’d take me back to the train station. Easy.
Well, I’m sitting on the train to New Jersey when my phone rings. It’s my boss. He’s in Washington DC- his plane was stuck in a holding pattern around Newark airport and ran low on fuel so they diverted down there. He was originally due into Newark at 9:30, but now it was looking like 2:45- 15 minutes before the meeting. Clearly, I was going to have to lead the meeting, something that I wasn’t entirely confident about.
Now it’s about Noon, and I have three hours before my meeting. I remember I have a friend in this town that I hadn’t seen in awhile, and since I had time to kill, I have him a call to see if he’s free for lunch. Ten minutes later I’m in the car with him and his two kids, heading to lunch. Over lunch he brings me up to speed on his life, including some stories about family members that lead to 15 year sentences to state penitentiary, and a line from him that his house is in such a need for repair that the safest place in the house is on the roof.
During lunch, this fake tooth has come loose and I almost chew on it. I sort of push it back in place, and try to finish lunch. After lunch I get a tube of fixodent and glue it back in place as my dentist told me to. The fixodent does the trick, but also puts me in agony as I think it was hitting the nerve.
He drops me off near my meeting, and I meet up with my other co-worker. We go over our stuff for the meeting, and go to meet with the potential client. It was pretty obvious to me about 30 seconds in that she wasn’t so interested in what I was there to discuss, but what my co-worker was offering. I say my peace and we leave.
My co-worker offers to drop me at the train station so I can get back into Manhattan. This makes sense, so I hop in her car. about thrity minutes later I discover that we were in her father’s car, and we had to go meet him so we could exchange cars with him and pick up her seven month old her dad had been baby-sitting. We also pick up someone else, and I wind up in the back with the baby. This starts out fine, and I’m smiling and playing with the kid. Then it gets hungry and starts crying… then I wind up singing “The Wheels on the Bus” in order to keep it from screaming again. And my tooth hurt. All in a suit, no less.
I get let off at the train station, and I get on the train. Some guy on the train asks me a basic question, and I give him the answer. He then keeps talking, and I kept motioning that I wasn’t interested in talking my trying over and over to put my headphones back on. This doesn’t stop him. He keeps talking to me about how he was Canadien had been stuck in the area for the last week because his luggage had been stolen and he had no way to identify himself. I was having a hard time working out if he was saying was true or if it was some sort of con… I really wasn’t sure. He then gets up and says he wants to ask me something and then comes closer to me and says that he’s embarrassed about the question. I’m making all kinds of motions that I am not all that interested, but he pulls out some sheet of paper- it looked like some sort of standard form. He gestured to it and I continued to attempt to keep my distance. We were pulling into a station just then, and when the doors opened he turned and sort of bolted out the door, shaking his head. I’m still not really sure what he was asking me, what the paper meant, what he wanted and if he was really in need or trying to con me.
Confused, I get off the subway and back to the office to drop off my bag. I had an appointment to do some computer work for someone I help, and I didn’t want to carry it. I went over to fix the computer, and then went out to dinner with the guy I was helping. He took me to one of the more upscale restaurants in the area, where I had one of the best pieces of fish in my life. Then I came home and wrote this.
Life, dude.
