Shit!
What, you ok?
Now I’m feeling bad for startling the Lyft driver
I mean we’re halfway to SFO already
Heading down 101 through the eucalyptus groves of the Presidio
Toward the tunnel
Which is a great place to get a speeding ticket
But I wouldn’t know anything about that
Besides I digress
See the problem at hand
Is that my flight to JFK is leaving in 90 minutes
And I’ve barely left enough time
Screw you Dad for always leaving plenty of time
Too much time
Twice as much time, sometimes even more!
But my old man was right
I cut it too close—
Again
No room for error
And now we have an error—
A big one:
I left my wallet in San Anselmo
In Marin County
At least 30 miles north
And a 90-minute round trip—
Out of the way
Missing the flight is a certainty at this point
Or is it?
See it’s worth mentioning
That I have a really strange background
I’ve said and done all kinds of weird and crazy shit
Went to UC Berkeley when I was still in high school
Smoked and drank a lot of stuff
Nearly got myself kicked out of Stanford
Traveled all over the world on business
And sometimes pleasure—
Often both
Had a wife but she ran me out of town—
Definitely a story for another time
Also I built the tech for a dark horse presidential campaign
And before that spent seven years at CIA
People who don’t know any better call it “The CIA”
See now that’s how you can tell
Just like you can tell if someone is from Los Angeles
When they say “The 101”
So that was a very different version of me—
The CIA version
In fact at the time
I was happy to serve my country
And I’m proud of what we built—
And what we did with it
But I became less happy a few years later
After moving back to San Francisco
When the government of California
Decided to turn my bicycle accident
Into The Crime of the Century™
Now I realize CIA and CA
Are two different entities
And perhaps I’m throwing the baby out with the bathwater
But my experience
Being the subject of a high profile criminal prosecution
For a goddamn accident
A bicycle accident
Changed how I feel about government
About authority—
And that’s a really nice way to put it
So how I fiercely protected my privacy at CIA
Then had a complete loss of privacy
As I was tarred and feathered
By local national and global media?
That made me paranoid
I mean really fucking paranoid
I’ve even talked to doctors about it
And they say no it’s okay
You’re the right level of paranoid
Which is not helpful
But I understand what they mean
Because thinking that people are out to get me
Is actually perfectly normal—
When they are
As it turns out exploring the depths of my paranoia
Jogs my memory
And it occurs to me
That in my laptop bag
Sitting right there next to me in the Lyft
Hidden deep inside an inner liner
I had placed a small blue pouch
With a zipper down the middle
And a tiny belt loop
Meant to be worn inside shorts or pants
Like a sealed interior pocket—
Concealed from wandering hands
In the little pouch:
A miniature Moleskine journal
(The cover embossed with “Good Grammar is Sexy”)
(Because it is)
A ballpoint pen, safe for air travel
A condom, safe for penis travel
The US Constitution, pocket-sized
An encrypted thumb drive with passwords for everything—
And my perfectly valid unexpired passport
Do you want me to turn around?
No! Keep going, we’re good
With a US passport I can probably get to Tibet
So I figure I can also probably get to New York
And if I can get to New York
Then I can probably figure out the rest
My irrational confidence
Fighting a tug-of-war with my paranoia—
My very rational paranoia
First off I have to figure out how to pay for this Lyft
That actually isn’t bad
Between Apple Wallet
And Paypal
Venmo
And all my apps
I can spend money online no problem
The real world—
As it turns out
Can be a little more complicated
Don’t need to rent a car
Good because my driver’s license is 3,000 miles away
Metro Card?
Apple Pay
So I manage to make it to the hotel
A cute place in TriBeCa
The room is already paid for
But trouble ensues anyway
They insist upon running an imprint of a physical credit card
You know for damages and stuff
I have practically everything else in the world
Other than a physical credit card
Because it’s tucked neatly next to my drivers license—
3,000 miles away
I explain the forgotten wallet
Hotel policy, you know
I realize I’m getting nowhere
So I call in a favor
A couple of my coworkers are staying in the same hotel
Before long I get one of them on the phone
And he kindly lets them use his card
For damages
So I trash the hotel room
No I don’t do that!
What kind of a person do you think I am?
Anyhow I manage not to have too much trouble
Spending money in New York City without a wallet
Apple Pay and Apple Wallet go a long way—
Even in 2014
And some restaurants and stores—
Worst case
Actually allow me to read them my credit card number
While others give me attitude
But hey it’s New York City—
If you don’t like this place
Fuggin’ go to the one next door
Every one of my trips here
Whether good, bad, or meh
Involves acquiring a dozen bagels
And a tub of whitefish salad—
If at all possible
This is too important of a mission—
And I have a return flight to catch
Finding a bagel joint is the easy part
I mean come on this is New York City
But it’s crowded inside
Peak bagel time
A bit chaotic
I struggle to imagine how I’m going to pull off
Reading my credit card number out loud
In a room full of New Yorkers
Angry about bagels
(They’re always angry about something)
Then a light bulb goes off in my head
You know the proverbial one
And I opt for the sure thing:
I step outside and find a quiet spot—
No easy feat in New York City
But I do my best
Then I grab my phone
Look up the number of the bagel joint
The one I’m standing right in front of
So I call them
Placing my take-out order
And reading my credit card information to them
From right outside
Just me and some very healthy-looking pigeons
(The smartest ones go for the everything bagels)
(Obviously)
A few hours later
I push that silver button
It seems only found on airplanes—
You know the one that reclines the seat back
And I sink my teeth into a fresh pumpernickel bagel
A thick band of whitefish salad oozing out
Ever so slightly
Like a sickly tongue
Making a sizable mess
But absolute perfection in my mouth
As I fly west back to San Francisco
The endless sunset painting the cabin’s drab grays
In lush gradients of brown and pink
What strange and discordant circumstances from the past
Whether seen at the time as good, bad, or meh
Converged in such a way
That made it possible for me
To fly from San Francisco to New York City—
And back
Without my wallet
Now just because you can—
Doesn’t mean you should
For the record
I advise carrying at a bare minimum:
Multiple forms of ID
More than one credit card
An ATM card
And a good chunk of cash when traveling
Or else YMMV
And how much your mileage may vary
Depends upon what you forget
