Two guys are crossing the street toward me, chatting. In a regular people-watching way I note their presence, but there’s nothing particularly striking about them. I start to cross the street.
But as we meet each other from opposite sides, the guy on the left stops abruptly. Smack in the middle of the crosswalk he stops talking to his friend, turns to me, and says: “Come on, I mean, you have to!”
Have to. . .what? I ask. It goes without saying that I have NO idea what he’s talking about.
“High five!” he says. Lifts his hand. Looks at me pleadingly; waits.
When I ask what the occasion is for this mid-street high five he says, alarmed: “Because I’ll never see you again!”
I dunno, Portland’s pretty small, I tell him. We’ll probably see each other again. I mean, probably in a week, at some party or other.
“But who knows?” he says. “Just in case!”
So I give him a half-assed five. And then he goes right back to chatting with his pal, as if he hadn’t ever stopped. And especially as if he hadn’t interrupted his own conversation to bizarrely interact with a stranger.
Now, I suppose this was a very Portland moment. A “moment,” if you will. Charming even! you might say. (Or creepy. It depends.)
But! In this age of the Information Superhighway, who’s to say he wasn’t just tryin’ to get blogged??
Michele, I think you managed not to notice you were being hit on.
“In this age of the Information Superhighway, who’s to say he wasn’t just tryin’ to get blogged??”
well said.
Thank you, Ryan.
At least he’s not OCD — he’ll high-five some stranger on the street! Since the swine flu arrived, people are not shaking hands or touching hands in any similar sort of way. It’s certainly a PDX and not a NY thing to do what the guy did!!!
And maybe he was spotted you as a New Yorker and was this was a nefarious plot to pass swine flu onto your unsuspecting soul. . . .