My coworker Josh is one of those guys who was put on earth specifically to make other guys feel bad about themselves. There is seemingly nothing this guy can’t do: he can discuss Diaper Genies and major league baseball with equal ease and on a recent weekend he installed some crown molding on Saturday and then spent Sunday canning the organic tomatoes that he grows in his own backyard in a soil fortified by compost that he made himself.
When Josh expounds on a topic, like why cuddling is better than sex, or that he would never pay someone to re-roof his house when he just could do it himself`, the men in the room start to shift their weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other while the women, starry eyed, compare him to their own husbands and sigh a lot.
I spend most of my life feeling inadequate, and not just because I can’t install crown molding or can tomatoes, but I feel even more inadequate than usual when Josh tells me about his yearly vacations. My vacations are planned and scheduled months in advance. I can tell you where I will be sleeping every night and where I’ll be having dinner. I travel with at least six credit cards, photocopies of my driver’s license and a small pharmacy. Josh thinks I lack spontaneity, but I schedule at least an hour every afternoon to be spontaneous.
None of this impresses Josh: he is an adventurous traveler: He and his wife and three teenaged kids have hiked down the shaft of extinct volcanos, and once they spent several days stranded in a pine tree in the wilds of Wyoming because an ill-tempered grizzly would not let them come down. He is on a first-name basis with the great white sharks of the Great Barrier Reef and, recently, at a training session in New York, he told me, “The next time you’re in Nepal call my friend Dipendra – he serves the most incredible barbecued yak.”
I was in no mood to discuss yak, barbecued or otherwise. Due to a scheduling error, I had just learned that Josh and I needed to be in New Jersey for a meeting the next day. Since I always teach the morning session, and Josh teaches afternoons, I decided to head to New Jersey right after lunch to set up the next day’s meeting, so I told Josh I would meet him in Jersey later that day.
Josh’s smile faded. “Jersey?” he said. “How do I get there?”
“Simple,” I said. “Just take the subway to Penn Station, the E-train. Then take the New Jersey Transit train to Edison and take a cab to the hotel. It’ will take you an hour, tops.”
Josh gulped. “How do I know it’s the E-train?” he asked.
“It has a big “E” on it,” I said.
“But how do I find the New Jersey transit?”
I was honestly mystified. “You follow the signs,” I said, adding unkindly, “They’re printed in English.”
Now Josh was pale. “But how do I know which train to get on? How do I know when to get off?” He lowered his voice. “I’ll have my luggage with me. Is it safe?”
I did not have time to explain; I had several hours of work ahead of me and wanted to get started. “Look,” I said. “Millions of people do this every day. Little kids do it. Foreigners do it. You’re a world traveler,” I reminded him. “it’s just New Jersey. You’ll be fine.” And I left.
It took Josh four hours and 27 text messages but he finally made the 40 mile trip to New Jersey. When I finally saw him later that night he was rumpled and disheveled; his hair was considerably grayer than it had been in the morning and he smelled like he had been chain-smoking. He did not want any dinner. “I’m going to bed,” he said shortly.
I met Josh for breakfast the next day and he was back to being himself. “Did I ever tell you about the time I took my wife and kids on a walking tour of Afghanistan?” he asked.