OddThinking

At uni, my friend, Karen, ran up to me. “Come with us to the airport! Stephanie is coming back from a long trip to the UK, and we are all going to greet here!”

“What? Straight off the plane?”

“Yes!”

“Isn’t it something like 28 hours of travel to get here from London?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Wow, if that was me, I wouldn’t want a bunch of people meeting me at the airport. I would would want one person to quietly drive me home to bed.”

“Nah! You wouldn’t be like that, if you’d been away for ages like here. She’ll want all her friends there!”

“Ewww… sounds awful. I’d hate that. I couldn’t put someone else through that. Have fun at the airport. Say hello to Stephanie from me.”

Fast-forward 12 months, and I am flying back home after being away in Sweden for many months. The trip was horrifically long, and I barely slept a wink on the plane.

At the airport were a large group of my friends, but they knew the score. They all had their stories straight. All but one of them were ostensibly there to see my travelling partner, not me. They weren’t defying my preferences; they were honouring hers.

“Oh my god, Julian! You are green! Are you okay?” asked Karen.

“Do you need a doctor? What’s wrong?” the others chimed in.

“Just take me home!” I croaked trying to both clench my teeth and squint my poor eyes against the early morning Australian sun. “I just want to go home and sleep.”

Someone took pity on me, and took me home, where I went to bed, and slept for about 10 hours, showered and headed back out to catch up with my friends – many of the same people I had seen that morning.

“Wow, Julian!” they cried “You are looking much better! In fact, you are looking very healthy now. Good to have you back!”

I just rolled my eyes.