Over the years, my brother, Michael, has given me two valuable pieces of advice:
1. He told me to always buy a $10,000 car. This is great advice. Ten thousand dollars will get you a reliable car and a payment you won’t even notice. But, come to think of it, he bought himself a very expensive truck. Hmmm.
2. Following a terrible night out and much complaining about it to my brother, he said, “Paula, sometimes you have fun and sometimes you don’t, but you gotta keep going out.” Wise words, Michael. And words I replayed in my mind after my last layover in Mexico.
My flying partner, Roberta, and I made plans to meet for dinner. The Captain was hinting that he wanted to join us, so Roberta asked me if we should invite the pilots. I said, “Sure, they seem like nice guys.” not realizing that The Captain had a thing for Roberta.
At the restaurant, we sat outside, underneath a speaker that was BLASTING music so loud we had to shout to talk… which The Captain insisted we do. He said, “Tell me three things about yourself, two are true and one is false, and we have to guess which one is the lie.” Okay. Silent groan. Fine.
I said, “I’m a farmer’s daughter, I love horses, and I went to Berkeley.” He said, “I don’t think you went to Berkeley.” X, Wrong. I don’t love horses.
Roberta’s turn. She was just as excited to play this game and completely copied me. She said, “I grew up in the East Bay, I went to UC Davis, and I adore horses.” I said, “Adore?” Obviously, that was the wrong answer because she used the word adore.
Next, it was The Captain’s turn. I can’t remember all the braggy details he told about himself, which, incidentally, I could barely hear over the bassline thumping in my chest. Besides, he wasn’t really talking to me. It was all Roberta, Roberta, Roberta. I felt like I was on their date, and I just wanted to go back to my hotel room.
Just as soon as he turned to Roberta and said, “So, you went to Berkeley?” the sky opened up, and rain started to pour down all over us and our dinner. I jumped up to run inside, only to ricochet off something and bounce right back into the torrential rain. Was that The Captain? Yes. Yes, it was. He ran me over to save himself and, of course, Roberta.
Half the restaurant needed to be reseated inside, so we stood around for quite some time. Soaked and freezing in the air-conditioning and desperately hoping to end the evening, I kept saying, “We were mostly done eating.” But nobody could hear me over the blaring music. And honestly, no one was listening to me anyway. The hostess eventually found us a new table, and the night wore on.
While it’s never fun to be the girl at the dance left holding the purses, I will say that The Captain turned out to be a nice guy and a generous guy. He picked up the bill, which was several hundred dollars. And, at least, Roberta had a good time.
Oh well. As my older brother once taught me, sometimes you have fun, and sometimes you don’t.
But you gotta keep going out.