Category: Daily Prompt

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Eighty-Two

(to the tune of Taylor Swift’s “Twenty-Two”) It feels like a perfect day to take out my false teeth And make fun of those youngsters. Uh uh. Uh uh. It feels like a perfect day for those high waisted pants To keep me looking groovy. Uh uh. Uh uh. Yeaaaah. I’m dazed, confused, and emotional … Continue reading Eighty-Two

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Favorite Mistake

“Did you know when you go it’s the perfect ending to the bad day I’ve gotten used to spending? When you go all I know is you’re my favorite mistake.” -Sheryl Crow

deletebuttonI’ve made enough mistakes in my life to choke a horse. If you could lay them end to end they would be longer than a reclining Statue of Liberty. Sometimes I made so many mistakes in a row that I honestly couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, I would get so frustrated from making so many mistakes that I would be careless and make more mistakes. Some of my mistakes have been huge ones, and others have been relatively inconsequential, but every single one of them has been preventable. In fact, that’s in the very definition of the word…

mistake: an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.

I particularly like that part about insufficient knowledge because it doesn’t mean that smart people don’t make mistakes. Even smart people are smart in certain areas and not so much in others. For example, Albert Einstein, pretty smart… in theories and mathematical equations. Put him on the street in Harlem and see how many mistakes he makes. See what kind of trouble he gets into because he doesn’t understand the lingo, the nature of the streets.

Some of my mistakes have fit into this paradigm very nicely and neatly, like the time I got on the wrong subway in Boston. I know the subway like the back of my hand, but the subway I’m familiar with is the Philly one, and Boston’s is just different enough, and the area just different enough, that I got lost for a good hour before finding my stop. Another time I made the mistake of asking a woman when she was due, and… she wasn’t pregnant. I call it foot-in-mouth disease, but that’s another mistake I created because I didn’t know. Continue reading “Favorite Mistake”

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The Terminal

Schiphol Gate D, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsThe terminal is huge. I should know. I’ve been wandering around it for the past hour, people watching. You’ve done it before. Don’t pretend you haven’t. It’s easy. Just sit down in a spot and pretend to be doing something else. Periodically check your watch, or study your fingernails, or even put on your sunglasses and pretend to be asleep. Then just listen to what’s going on around you. You’d be surprised at what you’re privy to when people don’t know you’re watching or listening to them.

But finding a spot to stop is tricky, because terminals work in cycles, just like anywhere else. Planes aren’t always taking off or arriving, but when they do either of these two things mad rushes ensue at different parts of the vast terminal. There are people running late who are dodging others left and right to try and make it to their gate. There are people who are hurrying to line up because they know how long it takes to board the airplane and they want to be able to relax in their seats as soon as possible. There are people who are waiting for others to get off the plane so they can embrace and appreciate a closeness that has been absent as long as they have been separated.

So I stop at Gate D44 because it’s not crowded with people in line for a flight or with people waiting to greet those disembarking from a flight. In fact, only two small groups of people are in the chairs servicing the gate. I glance briefly at the board and see that the next flight to Stockholm leaves from this gate in three hours. I sit down. I’m not going to Stockholm but I’m interested to see who is. This is the glory of watching and listening to strangers. I put on my sunglasses and lean back in my chair. I am directly across from the nearest small group of passengers, three people who somewhat resemble each other.

“I wish we didn’t have to get here so early,” the girl with blonde hair says. She is probably 15 years old, and already bored with the grand adventure. She is wearing a white t-shirt and short shorts. She pops her gum and I am reminded of when I used to pop my gum. Continue reading “The Terminal”