Prying Eyes… How They Offend
Posted by Chris on October 1, 2009
So I’m feeling much better about where I am today. Sitting at Java Joe’s downtown is a much more agreeable locale than in the ‘burbs or stripmallville. Let’s face it… the only thing separating me from the The Royal Mile is an alley. Bangers and mash with a pint or an 18 year old scotch at 2:00 on a Thursday… it’s just enough to know the option is there. Dddouble espresso will suffice.
I can’t figure it out. Perhaps one of three options.
1. I stink.
2. I look like a sexy ex boyfriend she simply can’t stand to be near… the memory is too much…
3. She has mistaken me for a spy from a former eastern block nation who wants nothing more than to get the information off of her laptop with the hidden camera in my glasses.
I sat down with my coffee and laptop bag at a table diagonal behind a woman working studiously on her laptop. Yes, if I tried, her screen would have been within my view. She got up without even a glance my way and then moved to a table across the room by the door. You, my lady, just became the subject of today’s backstory.
Thin, with straight blond hair, appears to be in her mid-late 20′s. The shoulder length hair curls under just before it meets her stylish red scarf which pops from the contrast of her snug fitting black knit top. Hey, when I pick a subject, I pick a subject. High cheekbones show a jagged edge to her face which is further emphasized by the fact that her thin tightly pressed lips have yet to crack a smile in the last 30 minutes.
She is a multitasker. Switching freely from her laptop to her blackberry to her notepad and pencil. What is she working on? With whom is she communicating? Canadian state secrets? One thing is for sure, I dare not let her catch me looking. That’s the kind of woman who has secrets hidden in her black and white checkered purse. I’ve already stirred enough suspicion.
The blackberry is a secure communication link to some satellite beaming messages to a coffee field in Venezuela. Oh yeah, the whole thing is a front. She isn’t directly involved in moving anything. Someone like her would never get caught with her hands dirty. She is a consultant… a facilitator.
So why is she here? Believe me, she never intended to still be. No one like that intends to be in Des Moines, Iowa any longer than they have to. Des Moines just happens to be at the crossroads. I35 and I80. Mexico to Canada… New York to San Francisco. A woman like that speaks fluent English, French, Russian, and Spanish. German doesn’t really phase her either, come to think about it.
Then, like a flash, she was gone. Finally heard from her liason. It is tough doing business with the Russians. Seriously, who is still sobering up at a quarter to three… PM? I’m fairly certain I heard obscure French pop music coming from her Lotus as she drove away… even that though was just a medium for the Russian Mafia to pass her a coded message through American satellite radio.
Ever seen the movie The Man With One Red Shoe? I watched it for the first time this weekend. I know… 24 years too late… the last horse just crossed the finish line. What is it that makes some actors/musicians/public figures able to overcome bad performances while others cannot? I am fairly certain Tom Hanks’s name wasn’t mentioned in any Oscar chatter back in 1985. It’s not like it’s his only flop, either. Turner and Hooch? Joe vs. the Volcano? Not exactly Philadelphia or Saving Private Ryan. He overcomes though. Bono opens his mouth or announces a concert tour for U2, and millions of people around the world listen and/or buy tickets. They went through a phase in the 90′s though, where it looked like they had completely lost touch.
I don’t have an answer. I guess for the truly creative, the public must allow them their failures as well as their much more prominent successes. I know one thing… I am glad my failures are not as prominent as Tom Hanks’s or Bono’s.
