Business Trip

You’re at the train station early, after lugging your overnight bag, laptop, and purse downtown. While waiting for the track announcement you head over to the station coffee shop. You’ll have the large coffee and a bagel. Oh, why, yes actually you would like a juice to go with it as well. Matter of fact, throw in a banana too. Do you take Amex here? Great, charge this corporate card, please.

When boarding the train you avoid picking a seat next to the suits, a meager attempt to avoid any small talk about business or work or the weather. You find a window seat near an older woman; imagine it will be a quiet ride. As the train pulls out of the station, that sweet little granny pulls out her cell phone and starts yelling to someone about a tax return. You look longingly at the suits, silently typing away on their laptops.

You approach the front desk of the hotel, ready to check in. The clerk is younger than you, nervous. He gives you your keys, a map, explains a little bit about the area. He tells you the pool and fitness center are located on the basement level, that the fitness center is open 24 hours.

“Great! Perfect for my 2AM workout!” you exclaim.

“Uh, Really?” he asks.

“Uh, No.” you answer, slightly miffed your sarcasm went unnoticed.

You set up your laptop in your room, plow through several emails. In your room there is a king-sized bed, desk, chair, TV, and bathroom. You could be anywhere, in any hotel, in the entire country.

Around 6, you walk down the block to an Italian restaurant you noticed earlier in the day. “A table for one” you tell the hostess. Your waiter comes over. He’s young, certainly an undergrad at the nearby university. After he shows you where the wine bottles are listed on the menu, you make a joke about how you definitely will not be ordering a bottle for one tonight. He flusters, clears the second place setting. “Oh, I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him, smiling. He takes your order for (a single glass) of wine. When he returns it, he says, teasingly “hey, if you want, Andrew, the other server, and I are happy to keep you company.”

You laugh, smile after he leaves. I still got it, you think. Even the undergrads want to flirt. He returns a moment later, ready to take your dinner order. “Sounds great, m’am” he says after you order. M’am? How did you move from a flirtation to m’am that fast?

Back at the hotel, grateful you decided to throw your bathing suit in your luggage; you head down to the pool. The entire area is empty. So you swim your laps, climb into the hot tub to soak. As you sit there in the quiet, you think - there is no way you would want to be on the road all the time, but there are certain moments, when it’s really not all completely bad.