Atkins Can't Touch an Empty Mind
I’ ve never really been the klutzy or absentminded type. Believe me, self-deprecation is among my finer qualities and I would readily fess up if this were the case. But typically I have a pretty good head on my shoulders. A couple of weeks ago, however, I had a string of days where I couldn’t seem to chew my shoelaces or tie my gum.
On consecutive days I managed to leave my laptop (the closest thing I have to a child) in a taxi and my cell phone (the closest thing I have to a spouse) in my hotel room. Needless to say, my wireless family was not happy with me. (Author s note: I am, indeed, still single. Strange, huh?)
The first debacle occurred in Boise, ID. My colleague and I took a short taxi ride from our hotel to the airport and proceeded to check in. It wasn t until I needed to enter a frequent flier number I rarely use that I realized my backpack laptop and all hadn’t gotten out of the taxi with me. Like an uneven-legged man on speed, I frantically started running in circles.
Eventually I made it back out to the curb where I had been dropped off, but the taxi was already gone. I sprinted downstairs to the queue of cabs waiting for arrivals and desperately looked for one from the same company. Upon finding one I pulled out my phone and began dialing as quickly as my shaking hands would allow. Maybe I m paranoid, but I swear the bleeps my phone made as I dialed each button were actually just censored curse words reminding me what a pathetic wireless parent I was being.
When I got through to the taxi dispatcher I informed him of my situation and he got hold of the driver who had dropped me off. The driver was already on another run and said he would return in about 30 minutes. Those 30 minutes went by slower than half an episode of Walker: Texas Ranger . During the seemingly eternal limbo, a friend of mine called and I relayed the story, telling him how nervous I was because the driver could swipe it and claim he never saw it. Relying on a complete stranger to return my laptop was not my idea of a pleasant afternoon.
And yet, the wonderful gentleman did just that. Unharmed and in relatively quick fashion, the wireless family was back intact. Temporarily.
The very next day, I was making up for lost time with my laptop when I needed to make a phone call. Much to my chagrin, I realized I had left my phone sitting on the bed when I checked out of my hotel room. (That s what it gets for calling me a bad wireless caregiver the day before: more bad wireless care-giving.)
Again, I raced up the stairs and veered toward my room, all the while realizing the sole benefit of these memory lapses is involuntary exercise. Who needs a book on dieting; I need to forget things more often. Eat my shorts, Atkins.
As I continued to run, thoughts of a housekeeper finding the phone and deciding to keep it as a souvenir of my stupidity were running circles in my head, though I doubt they were sweating as much. As I turned the final corner toward my room, I nearly knocked over the cart of cleaning supplies sitting in the hallway. A lady came out of a nearby room and smiled, I ll bet you re up here looking for a cell phone, aren t you?
Yeah, I think I managed to say out loud. Otherwise a nod in between pants must have been sufficient.
I already turned it in to my manager s office, she said. Follow me.
She led me down to her manager s office and once again, I recovered my belongings no worse for the wear. I was elated. Aside from the glaring fact that anything with a pulse should not be under my direct supervision, what do these two incidents have in common?
Despite the disheartening reality we are exposed to every day through the media, there are a lot of good people left in the world. And people really are inherently good.
Doubt it? Yeah, I do too sometimes. But then God, fate, chance whichever or whatever source you alternately thank and blame for your position in life has a way of tossing eggs at your face with unbelievable precision.
In the above circumstances involving my carelessness, I was spared the indignity of permanently losing either of my possessions. Why? Not because I m lucky, as Vegas has so effectively reassured me time and again. Things turned out all right because of two good people. Yet my first (printable) reaction in each of these situations was judgment. Based on previous negative run-ins with taxi-drivers and housekeepers, I leapt to the assumption that the ones I was encountering this time around were cut from the same mold.
I was quickly reminded of what Gene Bedley points out: Assumptions are the basis of all strife.
Around the age of 14-nanoseconds you learn not to judge a book by its cover. Sometimes, though, you have to relearn, take a deep breath, wipe the egg off your face and remind yourself that you never know when the next person with integrity will appear! I do believe good things happen to good people, so I know of two people who will definitely have fortune smiling their way in the near future. And it s always great to remember that people out there still have the capacity to surprise you.
By the way, I officially call dibs on the Absent-Minded Diet Plan. If any of you cash in on this idea before I get around to it, you owe me a something nice. If I remember, that is&
– Adam Feilmeier