Why Why Why Scrambler
By Bryan May

When was that?  Last birthday?  Two birthdays ago?  My $100 Bloomingdale’s Gift Card would’ve come in useful when I had twenty minutes in Manhattan to find cheap clothes that I would probably wear one time, on a Sunday when near every store was closed.  But I didn’t have the Bloomies card on my person, why would I bring that on a business trip to New York?  I had only brought suits and dress clothes, and now, morning of the game, I had to find appropriate workman attire for a New York Giants-Chicago Bears football game.  What am I to do?  Go to Bloomingdales for jeans? 

I would have had my gift card had I brought my wallet, but I hate bulk in my pants, so I left the wallet at home in favor of the Drivers License/Credit Card/ATM Card/Health Insurance card/cash in my front right pocket scene.  I had already endured two scares where the aforementioned contents fell out of my pocket and onto my car floor while driving and were temporarily MIA, but those two scares haven’t stopped me yet!  The risk is worth the anti-bulk.  It hurts my back sitting on an uneven plane, and wallet in an overloaded front pocket is just juvenile.  So if you’re like me and aren’t fond of bulging pockets, be sure to include your health carrier card on you, because if something gets rugged and you are knocked out, you might be rendered to the back of the line solely because you didn’t have your card on you.  Ok, maybe not the back of the line, but it’s a definite possibility that you could have freshly inept resident nurse doggie howser cutting you up because all the real doctors are dicing fools that have PPO’s. That extra $70 a month can be clutch when your organs have more holes than my anecdotes.  Your salary with careful subtractions for HBO [“I MUST have my Sex and the City reruns!], that new pair of shoes [I MUST impress the ladies!], and that bottle of wine with dinner [“I MUST take the edge off after this day”] just amounted to $70.  And now you in all of your forecasting and goal-setting and intelligence are deceased, while minimum wage Steven who watched edited movies on KCAL and drank water to afford his monthly PPO withdrawal got his strep throat examined ahead of your holey organs. 

How long was I gone?  Four days?  In those four days, I got five pieces of mail that I am now shuffling to decide which one I should open first.  Four bills, and the fifth piece a notice from Capital One which reads, “Open ASAP!  Good News About Your Account.”  The good news being that I have run up debt with them for so long yet maintained my minimum monthly payment they have decided to up my limit.  Wow, they’re right, that is good news.  Attending my first official business trip and my first Ad:Tech was going to be outstanding, I was sure of it.  When travel is involved, rather, when life is involved, you can never know if something is going to be wonderful or despicable until after it has occurred.  And some of the most enlightening experiences are those that are initially despicable and end up making you more self-aware down the line and ultimately end up as positive forces on your being.  Driving to LAX at six in the morning I was smiling, knowing that this was going to be one of those initially grand experiences that kept getting better the longer I was involved.  I overcame an immediate hitch when I checked into my hotel with 200 pounds of baggage, and got to the “24^th” floor, as the bellboy had told me, only to find my room wasn’t on the 24^th floor.  So I lugged my hanging bags, suitcase, laptop and overcoat back to the elevator and took it down to the 20^th.  Room 2043, just like my extension at work, isn’t that amazing?!  “Golly thass prolly the MOST amazing thing I’ve ever heard!”  Upon sliding my card into the slot, repeatedly, hammering it hard then gliding it slow, making gentle advancements and perspiring intrusions, I was still coming up empty.  No culmination of green bliss.  The light on the door stayed red, and the door remained locked.  “Yeah, hi again.  First I went to room 2403, like you said, and it was the wrong room.  So I went to 2043, and my card doesn’t work.”  I took it out of my pocket, separated it from the rest and presented it to him.  “Oh, I see.  You had it in your pocket with the other credit cards and such?”  “Yes.”  “Ahh, that must be the problem.  It became de-magnetized.” 

We did not become de-magnetized, and if you’re trying to get over someone, that can be a problem.  At some point, maybe I’ll be involved in a relationship where I just “don’t have that feeling” for the person anymore, or they don’t excite, engage, or arouse my interest.  My last two relationships didn’t end that way.  I’m basically talking about three years on and two years off of relationships, totaling nearly five years, where during every second of the “off” time, I was missing the girl from the prior relationship.  As to be expected, I continue to miss the smile and soulful ways of my most recent ex.  I had not seen my ex-ex in close to 11 seasons, and I received a call from her my first night while in NY for Ad:Tech.  I had decided that I was not going to call her, because there was no reason for me to re-establish any sort of contact.  My friends had run into her at a bar, and notified her that I was in town.  She called inviting me to a club, while peculiarly enough, I was already in motion on the way to said club.  Luckily, my cohort received a call on the way to said club informing him to abandon the mission in favor of a new destination, otherwise known as unsaid club.  While walking in the door of unsaid, I listened to the voicemail left to me by my ex-ex, stating her plans for the evening.  “Wasn’t she with her live-in man tonight?  All of my friends had seen her earlier with him, and now she’s inviting me out to a club?  What’s going on here?”  There was no time spent with the ex-ex.  I ended up enjoying an exquisite filet at 1:00 in the morning with a Publisher that I had just met hours before, partied at three different spots and had all the laughs the city could handle.

After four days of partially intentional disconnect and plenty of reservation on my part, she and I met for a drink.  It was my last night in town, which usually serves as incentive to get stupid and/or irresponsible, but not with me.  I have managed to exercise quality decision making for some time now, and frivolous endeavors or harmfully disruptive situations disturb me to the extent that I have avoided them completely as of late.  Damn!  I just realized that I didn’t take a single picture the entire trip.  This work venture, the cross-country parade to engage with all of my favorite clients turned out to be the most enthralling vacation of my career.  Sure, I was on duty at the booth and working and in meetings, but I was not in the office, and you knew I wasn’t in the office, therefore it was a vacation.  And a tremendous one.  Nothing ended up happening with her.  Nothing other than a briefly emotional, momentarily jarring, and permanently significant exercise on how to conduct yourself while speaking with your ex-ex during your last night in New York for business.

 

Bryan May
bmay@emarketmakers.com