How not to have lunch with a friend

[cjsmith]

1. Arrange to meet "at his office", a street address, "to pick him up and go to the restaurant."
2. Key point: do not determine whether the driver is going to park and go in or whether the passenger is going to come out.
3. Another key point: make sure this is in a town with zero parking at lunch time, and make sure the driver can't park far away and walk because she can't walk far.
4. For extra bonus points, make sure the numbers on the buildings are hard to read while driving.

This would of course be Palo Alto. Pedestrians there are not all legally blind, but those who are not are required to sign a pact that they will have their eyes closed for the duration of their stay. About 50% of the drivers have obviously signed a similar pact. 90% of the drivers sign the one about not using turn signals. One two-way street I needed to use is not in fact wide enough for two-way traffic. If anyone out there thinks I had much time to look at BUILDINGS, think again.

5. Last key point: make sure the driver does not have with her ANY WAY AT ALL to reach the passenger. This was my big #@$!up.

I arrived ten minutes early and orbited for long enough to realize there was a problem. About ten minutes AFTER the scheduled time, I had the target zone narrowed down to two blocks, so I shrank the orbit. Shortly after that I realized I was spending enough time wedged in traffic that I could write text messages, so I did.

5. Text a mutual friend and beg for help, asking if she could tell passenger to head out to the curb.
6. Have mutual friend not see the text message for fifteen or thirty minutes.

I orbited for another fifteen minutes, spending the last go-round composing my "giving up I'm so sorry" text message.

I'm back at work now. As I pulled into the parking lot, mutual friend's SMS reply arrived. She got in contact with passenger and the knot was beginning to unravel. This is going to be comedy GOLD in an hour or two... or as soon as I get some food. I spent over an hour and a half utterly failing to get lunch.

Comments

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

mostly i felt bad for you - spending 90 minutes driving around on an empty stomach is never fun! didn't know palo alto was so horrible to drive through either - is it just university? i can cheerfully stroll down and meet you on alma next time if so

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I felt bad for you - you had no way of knowing what the heck was going on! Yeah, that section of Palo Alto is heinous. A couple blocks northwest (into the residential section) is way better, or I'm sure we could find a pick-up spot with parking. :-)

I also didn't know until I got Mary's message that you had no way of reaching me. I was so sure you had my phone number. (Then again, until I got into town, I was sure I had yours. sigh!)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

I was mildly annoyed that you'd lulled me into a false sense of security by giving me your landline rather than your mobile number :) (not annoyed at you, mind, just annoyed)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm evil that way, always wanting to trick people into thinking they can have lunch with reach me. :-)