Permit me, please, to completely jump over the main event—the concert we flew to Portland to attend, for just a bit longer. Now I want to tell you what happened when the concert was done and we hopped on the train which would drop us off a mere two blocks from our hotel. So when we left the Moda Center, we were sardine-packed into the train back to the city’s main drag (That word is still legal here, right?). After a couple of stops, enough folks had disembarked from the train so that we could breathe again. HEAR ME, PEOPLE! There is a little—although highly important—thing called the social contract which we all tacitly agree to make with each other. It is unspoken and unwritten, for the most part. And yet, this contract keeps chaos and anarchy at bay as we go through every day of our lives on this planet. Part of this social contract is that we agree to stay out of each other’s personal and mental space—unless otherwise invited. We live and let live, and do our best to leave each other alone. What I’m getting at here is how we can co-exist amiably while literally being stuck together in small spaces like a train car, for example. I want to formally introduce to “some” clueless people two of the infinite parts of the unspoken, unwritten social contract we share with each other as our paths cross in the bigly world. Pay attention, folks! Here’s the wisdom: When you know you’re going to be breathing near herds of other breathing human beings, WEAR DEODORANT and SUCK ON A MINT. It’s just polite. It isn’t difficult to do. When you are in a group, close to other people you might or might not know, these are just two more ways for you to love your neighbors. Just sayin.’
The real obstacle to our plans that night had to do with getting back to our hotel, by way of public transit. Long story, short. There was a malfunctioning sign in our train car, which resulted in Suzanne and I—and a bunch of other concert-goers—missing our correct stop in the dark. By the time we all figured it out and got off to catch a train back the way we just came from, we were miles away from our destination. We were also underground and had no idea where we were. We were in a strange city none of us knew very well. We soon learned that the train we had been on was the last one scheduled for the night going in that direction, and the last train going back in our direction had already gone before we even got to wherever we now were.
We took the elevators up to see precisely where we were. This wasn’t gonna be good. And it wasn’t. We were at the Oregon Zoo! The closed zoo! The deserted zoo! Besides our little gaggle of Bruce-lovers, there was not one other human around! The zoo at midnight! Surrounded by wild animals we couldn’t even see, and we knew they could certainly see us! Un-walkable miles away from our hotel! Stranded with strangers who could’ve been a band of Springsteen-loving, roving serial killers, for all we knew! I called a cab company and couldn’t even tell the dispatcher an exact address where they could fetch us. I told them, “We’re at the Oregon Zoo.” But remember that freaky storm which showed up earlier in the week? Yup, the storm was a problem still. Cabs were few and far between. The wait for one was going to be lengthy, if a taxi showed up at all—which it didn’t. Suzanne eventually called a Lyft, which did show up—after the longest, coldest time. While we waited and waited some more, the temperature dropped bigly, the wind came up, and the snow began to fall. We had no shelter. Finally after another long wait, a vehicle arrived to save us.
By the time we got back to the hotel that night, Suzanne and I were not speaking. We weren’t upset with each other, or anything else for that matter. We were simply done with the complications of our day. There was not one word that either of us had any reason or energy to say. That was a first for us.🚃
