Alex Moschina

Bereft of any real understanding of what’s about to happen, you’ll smile at the other travelers as you head north on I-95.

Hmm? The company you work for now has a softball team? Yeah, we don’t have anything like that. But once a month, we do this mandatory “happy hour” where we corral everyone into the break room and go over any updated policies/procedures. It’s B.Y.O.H.S. (the “H.S.” stands for “healthy snack”). It’s a lot of fun.

“We belong together,” I pleaded. “Can I call you?” She answered no, put up another away message and returned to being lazy with what’s-his-name (whose name I knew but didn’t want to say because it was decidedly more masculine than my own). Over the next few hours I alternated between leaving her voicemail messages and sobbing. At some point I thoughtlessly broke things off with my new girlfriend.

She tells us all Happy St. Patrick’s Day, then makes a flimsy segue about how green is the color of energy and that’s what yoga is all about — our inner-energy. I try and shoot my wife a cockeyed smirk but, much to my chagrin, she’s actually paying attention.

She concluded, without much deliberation, that he’s a bit of a megalomaniac. I recalled the lyrics to an Incubus song on the subject and concurred. She added: “He’s kind of a sociopath, too.”

After dinner, I’ll watch a documentary about how wasteful our society is and how we could feed every starving person in Haiti with the food we throw out each year. The whole time, I’ll be thinking of that Portlandia sketch about dumpster divers and the Haitians will seem like they’re on another planet, far beyond my reach.

You’re one of maybe five people I know — the others of which are guys — who would appreciate it. When I saw it, there was a part of me that really wished we were seeing it together… but don’t worry, that’s not the sort of thing I would’ve brought up if we’d continued chatting.

While we taxied to the runway, you told me about how you used to have a cat named Tom that would attack your wife in her sleep. You searched through the pockets of your khaki travel vest to try and locate one of your business cards. Your business? Bridge-building. Hence, Bridge Man.

I turn to be greeted by a very familiar-looking TSA officer. Why, it’s my old high school rival, Jim! (He’s the dirty dog who stole my best gal and took her to the Homecoming Dance senior year.) “Hey Jim! How are you? You’re looking good, my man!”

The group seemed friendly enough. They were all responsible young professionals – the kind who make a beeline for the food table when arriving in these types of situations (as opposed to the open bar). I said something like, “So, have you guys been keeping up with the Kardashians?”

It wasn’t long, though, before I noticed two pairs of eyes staring at me over the back of a computer monitor. It was a boy and a girl. When I looked up, they looked down and one of them whispered, “Busted!” Over the weeks that followed, they returned several times.

I feel doubly foolish when I consider the only thing I am actually “in charge of” is the music – a responsibility I was given because my fiancée knew it was the one job I might actually enjoy.

The first time it happened, I was 14 years old. My friend, Sarah — an older girl who wore band t-shirts and had punky hair — brought me to a dirty café that was known for letting teenagers smoke as long as they paid for coffee. I had a crush on her and she knew it.

The lady I sat next to told me she had never used a Scantron; she’d never even seen one until that moment. I watched her flip the paper over and over as she examined it like some strange alien artifact.

One of the guys–the older one–gets out of bed and shuffles off to the bathroom, easy, like it’s just another day. But the other guy–the young guy–he hits the snooze button and just lies there. Then after a beat his girlfriend pokes him in the ribs and he gets up. It’s funny because it could really happen like that, you know?

When he got to me, I‘d say, “Cheesecakes.” Then his face would grow dark as it all came back to him; he hated me. Or rather, he hated my boss. He called him the “cheesecake man.” And while this isn’t a very cruel nickname, the way he said it, it had the earmarks of a racial slur. Now I was the “cheesecake boy.”

I was in the wrong here. I admit it. But calling me an “a-hole?“ That’s a bit excessive, no? (Those who were offended by my FB Moms/Hippies articles need not respond.) Especially considering that we’re more than likely going to run into each other sooner or later…

It seems like every Monday morning I trudge into work, log into Facebook and find you at the top of my news feed: jeans rolled-up, in mid-dive over a beautiful mountain spring. Or in a dimly lit bar, engaged in conversation with some transient friend of yours (you look like you’re saying something to the effect of “Yeah, well it’s only illegal because the government saw it as a threat to the paper industry and blah blah blah”).