I recently went to an in-person company function in Miami. It was strange. I was happy to see everyone, the overall experience was good, but it was the first time I travelled in the last two years. Keep in mind that the last time I travelled prior to this was also work-related (I went to a trade show in San Francisco).
I was nervous, felt like I had to re-learn in-person communication. Also, the covid restrictions are so few in Miami compared to where I live in Virginia that wherever I was, there was a permeating sense of guilt about being out and about. I still feel strange in restaurants. I certainly felt weird among the palm trees and the vague dirty pastel colors that coated my surroundings. We also went on a giant yacht for one of the dinners, which was fun, but it felt odd to be dealing in such extravagance with so many troubles in the world. All that aside the travel was relatively normal and I did not experience any cliché moment where one traveler made a scene about masking or something like that.
At the end of the week, we had our last meeting and then I went and had lunch with my team at which point we shared an Uber to the airport and said our farewells. I had several hours to kill but the prospect of doing nothing and being alone for a while was quite welcome.
If you met me during one of these functions, you would assume that I am an extrovert. I like to be quick, crack a sharp joke, and stay a few steps ahead in terms of strategic group think. It’s served me well in my career and I generally like to make people smile along with anything that will fill the hole in my soul where all feelings of inadequacy wait for me.
I’m actually not as confident as I put on, but rather use this form of extroversion to control the situation when I’m feeling uncomfortable and largely out of control. I’m not out there bulldozing people, no I want to hear what they say and have genuine interactions, but I’m overly concerned with being liked at times. Also, when I go to one of these business functions, some strange competitive streak and the need to be clever permeates my subconscious. I get way more invested in business topics that, in reality, I only have superficial interest in, and go all-in on trying to care about everyone’s input.
In reality, I prefer to be alone, in the quiet, with a book. The net result of a week full of putting on my social “game face” is the need to recharge in a dark dungeon somewhere for possibly half a year or more. This is of course impossible as a husband and father but you get the point, I’m actually quite introverted in reality. By the time I got to my gate, I was ready to decompress and not say another thing. In fact, I get to the point where I actually abhor the sound of my own voice and wish to sit in silence, any verbiage that needs to occur can be written in my journal or bust.
I found an empty gate in the same terminal as my future flight and found a corner to hunker down in as far as possible from groups of others — hard to do in a crowded airport. I grabbed a pre-packaged, refrigerated turkey sandwich and water and ate in silence. I looked around, trying to digest the events of the week.
After finishing my sandwich, I put on my headphones, threw on some classical, and put my head down in a book (the latest Colson Whitehead, “Harlem Shuffle,” which is *chef’s kiss, phenomenal).
Shortly thereafter I felt someone tap my shoulder. I must have been tired because I did not detect this person creeping up. It was an older Hispanic woman, perhaps in her seventies or eighties, worn, tanned, wearing a shawl and a long dress.
She pointed at the empty gate door and in quiet Spanish asked, “baño?”
I pulled my headphones off and looked around. There was no one else with her. I felt bad and oddly responsible for her now that she had tapped me.
“No, señora. El baño está allí a la derecha,” I said, pointing farther down the terminal on the right.
I stood up, threw my backpack on, and took her hand. We walked two gates down and then I pointed into the bathroom. She nodded and tapped my arm, and then went in.
I found a female airport attendant and explained the situation, as I was doubtful the older woman was going to be able to find her gate properly if she was having that much trouble identifying the bathroom. The airport attendant said she would go and check on the woman. I thanked her and went back to my hermit location at the empty gate.
Set up again I placed my headphones in, and put my hood up. I randomly began watching “Fantastic Mr. Fox” as I discovered it was in my iTunes collection. The movie always tickles me. I leaned forward watching the small screen while the voices of George Clooney and Bill Murray argued with one another as a claymation fox and badger, respectively. “The cuss you are.”
Again, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I was vaguely aware that another person had sat down a few seats from me and that the gate was beginning to fill up little by little.
“You goin to San Antonio?” said the voice in a gruff, country accent.
I looked at him, eyebrow raised, “San Antonio, no.” I went back to watching the screen.
“I’m going to San Antonio,” he said.
I wasn’t going to win apparently. I pulled out one of my headphones, sharply, in a way that suggested I wasn’t happy about doing it. I noticed that the sign on the gate now read “San Antonio,” meaning the next flight at this gate was headed that way.
“Oh, I’m just killing time, my flight’s at another gate, this was just empty when I first got here.”
I looked at the man, he was either a healthy sixty or a worn forty-five. His hair was whitish gray, short, but clean cut. He had a goatee to match. He wore various pieces of gold jewelry and one of those drab green “grunt style” shirts with the American flag facing the wrong way on the right shoulder to mimic that of the flag on our military uniforms. Fun fact, if you didn’t know — it’s facing that way as to appear like the flag is charging toward something rather than running away. That sort of shit gets guys like this off.
At any rate, between the accent, the goatee, the worn leathery skin, and the shirt I thought I was on my way to understanding everything about who this guy was. I realize that’s irresponsible and don’t judge a book by its cover blah blah blah but whatever, I was worn out.
I also noticed that he was amassing a neat pile of mini liquor bottles. This would explain the glassy look in his eyes and the extra-long slur of his country twang.
He looked me over, “whatyer doing here?”
“I was here for work for the week,” I said.
“Whaterya do?” he asked in a confident posture. He was sitting back and knees spread wide and relaxed.
I hate the question. I really don’t want to answer but I give part of it.
“I’m a writer. I write things for a tech company. I make their content.”
His eyes lit up at the sound of the word “Tech.”
He leaned in, “Tech company huh? You know anything about crypto?”
“A bit. I played around with it a bit at the beginning of last year but ultimately I’m sticking with traditional investing until it’s more sustainable and meaningful.”
He did not digest what I said and continued, “I gave my nephew all my money to mess with he done got me loaded with cryptos. Bitcoins the biggest, Ethereum, all that. I got like three hundred k invested,” he said with a very satisfied face.
It’s also important to note that when mentioning money as he did many times in the course of our conversation, he referred to k in his numeric figures literally as “kay”. I’m not writing it as a device for abbreviation. I’m writing it as a literal telling of him saying “three hundred ‘kay’.”
“Wow, that’s a lot. Good for you. Yeah, I think the philosophy of decentralization is good, and detaching from political entities is good in theory, but there’s really no proper value. It’s too swayable by factors other than just market forces. When more places accept crypto and there’s a more energy-efficient way to manage it then I may revisit.”
I’m willing to engage in a substantive conversation about this. I’m not just stonewalling and I’m not an expert so please dear reader, don’t fillet me one way or the other. I just don’t see a good path for me and crypto at the moment. But anyway…
His eyes glazed over, “Bitcoin is the biggest,” he said again.
“Yes, Bitcoin is the biggest,” I said. “I still just won’t mess around more until the whole thing is more stable.”
He shifted in his seat “Yeah, probably, probly, proly right. My nephew made me all kinds of money. And I got me one of those Teslas. Superfast man.”
“Wow, nice, yeah, all that instant torque. They make an impressive vehicle,” I said. I actually do like the engineering behind performance cars and have an appreciation for their design. I doubt I was about to have that kind of talk with this guy. He was keeping me on my toes though, skipping from one thing that was supposed to impress to another.
“Me and my nephew, we go racing that puppy. It’s a Corvette killer brother I’ll tell you what,” he smiled.
“Wow, nice,” I said again politely smiling but wishing to be hit by a semi-truck.
“I got a video here…,” he pulled out his smartphone and scrolled through his gallery. He seemed to drift off and forget about me as a small smile crept into the corners of his mouth. He looked at video after video of revving engines and what I could only imagine as his nephew driving in random street encounters. He never actually showed a video to me, which, no complaints here.
“Yeah, I told my nephew if he ever wrecks it, he bought it.”
He grabbed another mini bottle and seemed to forget about me momentarily. I put my headphones back in.
“There is so much pussy runnin around here,” he exclaimed.
God dammit. Alright, time to move on. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and dialed my wife.
“Hello?” she said.
“Oh hey, I said loudly, how did it go?”
“Huh?” she said.
“Yeah, just hold on a sec and I’ll go check,” I said, ignoring her. I brought the phone down and spoke to the guy, “hey it was nice chatting with you, I have to go.”
“Later brother.”
I nodded while pulling on my backpack.
I brought my phone back up to my ear as I walked away, “sorry hon, you just saved me from a miserable conversation. I’ll tell you about it later.”
She laughed, “I figured that’s what was happening. Is it almost time?”
“In about an hour. I’ll talk to you soon, love you.”
“Love you too, bye.”
I hung up. It was time to sit down somewhere else. I looked back to make sure my new friend was not paying attention to me. I was out of sight. Headphones back in. Time to find a place to sit.
I turned my attention to my gate and made my way toward it. As I walked toward an empty set of seats I could see a fifty-something-year-old woman coming toward me with her hand up as if she were about to ask me a question.
“Jesus Christ, am I wearing a sign or something?” I said under my breath.
I pretended I didn’t see her and turned around. Perhaps I would just walk around for the remainder of my wait time. And I did. I managed to not talk to anyone until I got home, thankfully, otherwise, I may have exploded. I hear those are bad on flights.