2/06/2007

Long distance, pt.III

You remember S****, right? The cranky old Palestinian dude who taught us about Incoterms and such back in College? Okay, now I’m gonna ask you for a little suspension of your belief: The following story is just as half-true as it sounds…

Ever since I started with this crazy series of travels for the office half a year ago, every time I sit in an airplane a guy looking like S**** sits right next to me. He always says Hi, and he always passes on his ham & cheese sandwich for a complimentary bag of peanuts. Sometimes he brings on the full family with him and sometimes he’s all by himself. We seldom talk.
As I write these very lines the S****-lookalike on this particular flight has just turned my reading lights on, when he realized I kept on scribbling even past when the cabin lights were dimmed for the takeoff.
“Thanks man,” I said. He just smiled.
Now, S****’s classes back in College- and yes, I’m painfully all-too aware of your own biased opinions of them- they were the only ones I could ever bear watching. Remember how he’d talk of ‘em cargo ships and the many different kinds of containers and etc? And then a few years later, and purely by chance, I got a job working in one of those very companies he’d often mention…?

…With his doppelganger flying with me, week in and week out, as they send me to kickstart some project in each and every one of our local offices…?
S**** the leitmotif-man. That’s how I came to call him in my dreams.