Calypso(23)

Pimsleur has made me hyperaware of the phrases I hear most often over the course of an average day, so aware that I’ve started jotting them down in hopes of putting together my own English program, one for business travelers visiting the United States. Let’s start at the airport newsstand, shall we? There, you’ll lay a magazine upon the counter and be asked by the cashier, “Do you need some water to go with that?” This will be said as if the two things should not really be sold separately, as if in order to properly read a copy of Us Weekly you’ll have to first rinse your eyes out with a four-dollar bottle of Evian.

The practice of pushing more stuff on you is called “upselling” and is one of those things that, once you notice it, you can’t stop noticing. At the airport in Baton Rouge a few years back, I ordered a coffee.

“Do you need a pastry to go with that?” the young man behind the counter asked.

“I wasn’t too shy to order the coffee,” I said, “so what makes you think I’d hold back on a bear claw if I wanted one?”

The fellow shrugged. “We have Danish too.”

This made me furious. “On second thought, I don’t want anything,” I told him. Then I went a few doors down to Dunkin’ Donuts and said, “I would like nothing but coffee. Just coffee. Period.”

The woman behind the counter crossed her arms. “No cup?”

“Well, of course I want a cup.”

“No milk or nothing?”

This always happens when I try to make a point. “And milk,” I told her. “Coffee in a cup with some milk in it but nothing else.” Then, of course, my flight got delayed by two hours and I had to go crawling back for some Munchkins. “Do you need coffee or a soda to go with that?” the woman who’d replaced the one I spoke to earlier asked.

Increasingly at Southern airports, instead of a “good-bye” or “thank-you,” cashiers are apt to say, “Have a blessed day.” This can make you feel like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne. “Get it off me!” I always want to scream. “Quick, before I start wearing ties with short-sleeved shirts!”

As a business traveler, you’ll likely be met at your destination by someone who asks, “So, how was your flight?” This, as if there are interesting variations and you might answer, “The live orchestra was a nice touch,” or “The first half was great, but then they let a baby take over the controls and it got all bumpy.” In fact, there are only two kinds of flights: ones in which you die and ones in which you do not.



Next you’ll meet the desk clerk at your hotel, a woman most likely, in her mid-to late thirties. She won’t know if you’ve driven to this city or flown and will ask after taking your credit card, “So how was your trip in?”

There’s really no answer but “Fine.” I mean, there is, but I’m guessing she won’t want to hear it. Or would she?



Her: So how was your trip in?

You: Well, I was originally going to fly, but then this tiger offered to carry me very gently in her mouth. I said OK, but you know what? She wasn’t gentle at all. One of her teeth pierced my small intestine, so now, on top of everything else, I have to shit in a bag every day for the rest of my life!

Her: Well, that is just awesome. We’re all so glad you made it.





After the desk clerk hands you your key, the bellman will grab your suitcase and ask, “So where are you coming in from today?” Like everyone else at the hotel, he doesn’t really listen to your answer. His words are just a hook to hang a tip on. You could say you’re from a town ten miles down the road or from another dimension. Either way, you get the same response: “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”

I object to these questions, not because they’re personal but because they’re not. “Instead of asking how my trip in was, why not ask…I don’t know…if I have a godson?” I said to a desk clerk not long ago.

She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “All right, do you have a godson?”

“I do,” I said. “He’s eight years old and is named Tommy. How about you? Do you have any godchildren?”

“No,” the woman told me. “I have not had that pleasure.”

She smiled like someone who’d learned to do so in a book, and I realized that if I wanted to make contact I needed to dig a little deeper. “He has cancer,” I said.

The desk clerk put her hand over her heart. “Oh, poor thing!”

“That’s OK,” I sighed. “I’m sure that within a year or two someone else will ask me to be a godfather.”

It wasn’t true that Tommy had cancer. I just wanted to get a rise out of her, to feel some kind of pulse. I knew that the young woman had a life. She’d gone to school somewhere. She had friends. I didn’t need a fifteen-minute conversation, just some human interaction. It can be had, and easily: a gesture, a joke, something that says, “I live in this world too.” I think of it as a switch that turns someone from a profession to a person, and it works both ways. “I’m not just a vehicle for my wallet!” I sometimes want to scream.

Go to a restaurant anywhere in the United States, and three minutes after your food is delivered, your server will return to the table, asking, “How’s that Southeastern Lard Pocket?” Once, in Kansas City, this was amended to “How’s that Southeastern Lard Pocket tasting for you?” As if the lard pocket had the tongue instead of me.