Encounter 4–The men’s room and mystery

OK, so this one is a little crude.

A few weeks ago I was in the men’s room. (You can stop reading now if you want to.) I was in that unique isolation afforded by the drab yellow walls of the stall that begin a foot off the ground and don’t reach the ceiling. It’s a big bathroom, with a long row of such stalls.

All was well.

Then I began to hear some guys in the stalls around me. I thought I heard someone cough, or sneeze. Then I heard several guys together at the same time. They were not coughing.

They were laughing.

They were doing the laugh of people who know they are not supposed to be laughing but can’t help it. The math class laugh. The library laugh. The business meeting laugh. The complete inside joke laugh.

Clearly these guys knew each other, and might have all been talking before I came in. They were sitting in their stalls and trying with all their might not to laugh, and not quite making it. There was definitely something funny going on. I had not heard any huge bathroom-type noises or anything. Besides, if there’s any place those noises are OK to make and not all that inappropriate, it’s the men’s room. No, this was something else.

As I exited my private mini-room and began to wash my hands, the suppressed hilarity continued, now from one stall, now from another. Other men had come in and left. But they stayed right where they were. I got the feeling that as soon as all of us outsiders left, the laughter would explode like–well, let’s not risk any analogies in a men’s room story.

I knew there was something funny, but I didn’t know what. I was strongly tempted to make some kind of comment on my way out (like “hope you guys enjoy whatever it is you’re doing in there”) to see if I could precipitate the outburst and maybe find out what was so stinking funny (…and the unintentional puns continue).

So I threw away my paper towel and left. As I was walking out, it occurred to me that I will never ever ever know what they were laughing about. Not a big deal in the larger working of the universe, but it just made me stop and think about my own limits. I will never know some things.

Ever.

Mystery is something I am comfortable with, as long as I am on the inside. But when it’s me, I don’t like thinking of surprises never revealed, or secrets never disclosed. But that’s just too bad, isn’t it? Nothing I can do will change it. I probably need to hit more of those walls more often in my life. I bet they’re really good for me.

Encounter 3

If you’ve never been on a two-lane state road through South Georgia, it’s sometimes lonely, sometimes boring, sometimes beautiful. They wind through the endless pine trees, and often open up suddenly on some tiny house or farm that is nowhere near anything, or lead into an isolated town with one traffic light–an island in the sea of woods. I usually end up thinking about what it would be like to live there.

A few days ago we were driving through somewhere, on state road three-digit-something, and there were a few houses on the right. As we blew by at over the 55 mile per hour speed limit, there was this lady.

Blonde, wearing an off-white coat. Standing at the end of her driveway, facing down the road away from us. Just standing there, looking down the road. She didn’t seem to mind the cars going by, or even be aware of them.

She didn’t look impatient or angry or anything. She didn’t move; she just kept gazing down the road. She might have been sad, or maybe that’s just how she struck me.

What was she waiting for? I really wanted to know. What would make her stare like that down the road, oblivious to the cars going by and the people (like me) rudely staring? Was she waiting for her roommate to come back with the car? Her sister to come in from Alabama? Her dog to be returned by someone who found it? Her kids to come home from visiting their Dad? Her husband to come home from war? Maybe just the UPS truck. As we drove by, she just stood there, staring down the road.

“Forlorn” is just not a word that jumps to my mind too often. But that day it did, as I drove by and got an 8 second glimpse at the waiting lady of GA Route three-digit something.

Encounter 2

This one was equine.

Driving a few days ago and I saw some horses in a field. It’s crazy cold, like in the 20’s, and they’re just hanging out outside all day. (Sometimes they have green horseblankets, but I don’t think they really need them. Maybe the green horseblankets are really to make owners feel better. Greenownerblankets on horses.)

So this one almost black horse who really shows up against all the snow just starts rolling. Horses are great to watch when they roll because they are built to stand up, and when they roll they combine grace and awkwardness in this weird blend that I just can’t not look at. He rolls, legs kicking, and I think maybe something’s wrong with him. But then he stands up. Then he drops and rolls again. Leg kick. Up again. Roll and kick again.

He may have been scratching

–interruption: sometimes when I talk I use the word itching when I mean scratching, which annoys me when other people do it but then I do it too. I wrote “he was itching” and then had to correct it. Maybe he had been itching which was why he was scratching–

He may have been scratching, but it looked more to me like he was just feeling good to be out there in the cold. Maybe running had gotten boring and he decided to try a roll. Maybe he liked it, and rolled more often than ran, and was a slight embarrassment to his green blanket owning owners.

Anyway, it was a nice moment. Sometimes I feel like that, right when I step outside into the cold from an overheated room. The feeling fades when the cold and numbness sets in, but that first crisp jolt is great. I can almost hear it.

Encounter 1

So I’m sitting on a plane at night. We’ve landed and we’re waiting for the gate monster to latch onto our door like those suck-fish on the side of aquariums, and the first classers to get their black leather articles and de-plane.

I’m in the window seat and looking out. It’s snowing–the first big one of the year–and I’m watching it fall, when I notice the plane next to us. It’s dark outside and I can see inside the plane’s windows. Apparently this one was beween flights, when they do the mysterious and sometimes inadequate cleaning of your seatbacks and tray tables in the full upright and locked position. I saw some torsos walking up and down, doing the cleaning thing. I went back to snowgazing.

I looked over a few minutes later and I saw a flight attendant, slowly walking the aisle in the abandoned plane. He had a bottled water and he was casually making his way down. He found a seat–an exit row seat–and sat down. It was the ’sit down’ we all do when we’ve been on our feet for too long. Saw his face: middle aged guy, balding.

He took a long drink and just sat there. He looked around, and looked outside the window. I think he saw me, but we didn’t wave. He turned back and took another pull on the water bottle.

I guess I never wondered what they do when they get their breaks. This guy had the plane to himself, and enjoyed a little of what his clients did earlier. A seat, a sigh, and a drink. It was kind of nice to have a window glimpse into that moment.

I could relate.