OK, talk about shock and awe. First, and philosophically foremost, it begs the question: how does one get googled in the right way???? I suspect a number of you will let your imaginations run wild with this one.
This is probably one of the funniest things someone’s said to me in years…and I do mean years. But aside from that feeling that it could turn into a Depends moment without a warning, it’s a teaser to a really terrific story.
The story starts today, or should I say several weeks ago, when a message is left on my voice mail. I’ve been working on a new deck on my house sun-up to sundown. Two things are true: I am damn near the point of physical exhaustion each day (ughhh), and I’m losing weight (yippeeeeee). It’s something around 8:30 or so as darkness is about to descend on my humble home. I am smart enough not to rush to the phone when I hear it ring. You see, one does stupid stuff when one is tired. Like: trip over a pine tree root, tumble head over heels, and break a leg (or arm, or bruise one’s sense of pride at a minimum).
I check my voice messages before hitting the sack. And what I hear at the other end just astounds me: “Do you know who this is?” is the way the message starts. I get a lump in my throat. Unless my mind has completely left me, it’s Lori – the best friend I’ve ever had in the world. OK, you may think this is no great shakes, but it is. You see, she and I haven’t talked in 25 years. Not because anything went wrong; sometimes life just gets in the way.
Deep background: Before I moved to Colorado, I lived in the swamp and swelter land of northern Florida. It’s almost hard for me to conceive that I could have ever been a Floridian, especially given the fact that anything over 70 degrees F makes me feel like I’m dying of heat stroke. But after attending Florida State University and becoming a young working adult, I stayed nestled in Seminole Country and brought home the bacon.
My last job in FLA was with the Florida Legislature, and this is where Lori and I met. We became fast friends quite quickly. There are some interesting paradoxes here. Our first names are only one letter different. And even if you misspell our first names, they are still only one letter off.
OK, this brings me to the subject at hand. When people haven’t spoken in 25 years, one may be inclined to bring out a flow diagram and figure out just where the heck things can go. First choice: do I call back? Well, that’s a duh approach. Yes, you call back. OK, when I call back will we have anything to talk about? Well, another duh insight. If you don’t have anything to get caught up on, it would be pretty sad.
Lori and I were the kind of friends who could finish each other’s thoughts and sentences. Both of us have an incredible sense of humor and perspective about the outer world. So when I called her back the following day, imagine this: two people inhaled (no, not Bill Clinton style!) to move on to the next sentence 25 years ago. The problem was we didn’t exhale until recently. We talked on the phone for nearly three hours that night. It was incredible time travel, to say the least. I’m sure we would have worn out the proverbial fly on the wall with all the nonstop conversation. With as much air as we both needed to suck to keep the conversation flowing, I am amazed the universe did not collapse in on itself.
So as the sparks flew for our nation for the 4th of July, Lori and I were just positively on fire during our next phone call. Both of us, over the years, had tried to find the other. Keep in mind that, when last we communicated, there was no Internet, no iPhones, no technology to speak of. I wasn’t even able to get a private phone line until 1991. The world was, indeed, a much larger place back then but growing smaller by the nano second.
It was during this holiday conversation that all hell broke loose. Referring to her erstwhile efforts to find moi, she utters that brilliant technologically-challenging phrase: “I googled you the wrong way.” My response: “I bet that’s illegal in 43 states.”
With that, we are both preparing for serious bladder issues.
Seems she had misspelled my first name, and nothing came up in the google search as a result. Once she caught herself, it was a different kettleafish.
I really had to fight to regain my composure. The last time I’d laughed that hard was…coincidentally…also in her presence. She and I had gone to see the movie, Educating Rita. Something said during the course of the movie tickled her funny bone, and she burst forth into belly laughter. As her laughter grew louder, it became contagious among the theater’s patrons. A snicker here turned into a chuckle there. Twenty chuckles morphed into 50 giggles. Pretty soon, you couldn’t hear the movie for the laughter. You could, however, hear the patter of little feet racing for the facilities.
So Lori, thanks for the laughter. And thanks for the lesson: it’s not a matter of who gets googled so much as how you get googled.
I’m going to take a chill pill before we talk again…
