Tuesday morning I got up at 4am to begin my day. My intent was to actually get up at 5, shower, get dressed, and head to the airport for an early flight, but at 4am my 2 and ? year old daughter came into my room and climbed into bed with me. My wife, Patti, was asleep with our infant son in his room, which she usually does after feeding him in the middle of the night. Like almost every time that my daughter climbs into bed in the middle of the night, disheveled, slightly disoriented, standing next to the bed waiting for to tell her to climb up, like she really needs an invitation because there is probably nothing more comforting than having your own young child fall asleep next to you, I could not get back to sleep. Most often, when she comes in an hour or two before I have to get up, I am up.
For your information, I had to get up early to fly to Jacksonville, Florida, through Atlanta, for a one and a half hour meeting, to head back to the airport, to fly back to Boston, through Atlanta, to get home at 11:30. Funny thing, this virtual world we live in. Anyway, like I was saying.
I got up at about 4, took a shower, and got dressed by the light of the bathroom coming into the bedroom. I did not want to turn on the lights in the bedroom and wake up my daughter. Not a huge deal because I lay out my clothes the night before an early wake up and knew where everything was. After getting dressed in the dark, I went downstairs, still in the dark because the sun does not really hit the streets in the Northeast until 5:30-ish, got my stuff, and left.
I arrived at the airport by 6:15, easily made it through parking, ticketing, security, and met up with my colleague at the gate. My colleague and I were meeting up with a partner in Atlanta and then proceeding to Florida to meet with execs at a potential client.
So I sat down at the gate, chatted with my colleague for a while, got up and got a coffee, and came back and talked about some other stuff. About 40 minutes before boarding I was about to make a comment about getting dressed in the dark and the risks it faces when I looked down and saw that I had a leather burgundy dress shoe on the left foot and a leather black dress shoe, similar but different style, on my right foot. When I got dressed in the dark 2 hours earlier I grabbed what I thought were a pair of dress shoes but in fact were two totally different shoes. I looked down at my feet, looked at my shocked and about-to-laugh colleague, and said ?Holy Shit?.
Now, I had a problem.
My first thought, no joke, was that we were going to lose this deal because if a senior management consultant could not match his f?in shoes than how could he help some financial company. Then my second thought was to call Patti, have her wake both children, get them dressed, packed in the car, and drive in traffic to the airport within 35 minutes. No way that was going to happen.
Then my next serious thought was ?how many people have seen me walking around with two different shoes??? But who cares. They would have no idea I did it for Emily, a 2 and ? year old girl sleeping like an angel back in Milton. About to wake up to another wondrous day playing and being happy.
One thing I have to mention is that I am fairly methodical. I think options through, benefits and risks, carefully plan and think through the process. I am good with this. So I said to my colleague, who mercifully gave me very little initial grief, that we have to use the 2 hours of spare time we had in Jacksonville to stop and buy a pair of shoes. Not a huge deal because I needed to buy a new pair of shoes anyway.
My colleague agreed and after a brief moment of clarify and revelation, told me to call the partner in Atlanta that we were meeting and see what shoe size he wears. He and I are about the same size and make, and he might be able to grab an old pair of loafers or something from one of his many closets. But that proved a moot point when he was in his car already, heading to the Atlanta airport.
This partner, who is a kindred spirit because he is also a transplanted Long Islander, quickly called back and said he would buy me a pair of shoes at the shoe store in the Atlanta airport. He dresses well and I had no concern that he would pick out a nice looking pair.
So I sat through the 2+ hour flight from Boston to Atlanta, hiding my feet, and met up with the partner at the Delta Concierge lounge to get my goods. He bought me a very nice and trendy pair of shoes, which were on sale by the way. I changed in the bathroom.
The one funny thing about this was when I first walked up to the partner he said ?I got you a great pair of shoe sand they only cost 340?. Ha. Good one.
bastard