I had completely forgotten to write about one of the things that Doug and I talked about on our mini-vacation.
No one knows who you are. You can say anything, and they'd have no way to verify whether or not you're telling the truth. You can invent an entirely different persona for yourself... You're on vacation. Reality is suspended.
The first full day we were there, after my incredibly unexpected, long, blister-causing walk, I put myself in the hot tub. There were two dads in there, talking about life and work and stuff.
One dad was from western Pennsylvania. The kids were on school break so they came to Disney. His two daughters, pre-teen, were hanging all over him, slinking around and swimming all about the hot tub.
He had to tell the truth, his daughters would probably call him out on any fabrication.
The other dad, he was from North Central Massachusetts, and he was on business. He travels to colleges and high-end fancy pants high schools selling flutes and piccolos. Not your 400 dollar flutes, but $15,000 professional instruments. He was spending a day or two in Orlando connecting with some regional prep schools and a university, and then he would be off to Texas to do his sales of super high-end tooty sticks out there.
Now, I sat there listening, not really getting into the discussion. They talked about where they lived and what they do and what they drive and how much they travel and blah blah blah... and the whole time I'm sitting there thinking of what kind of fantastic alternate reality I could paint for myself. I started thinking that I could say literally anything. Any.Thing.At.All.... and there would be no way for them to know if I was lying or not.
I wondered if flute dude was even telling the truth. He was reluctant to tell us how expensive the flutes were, so part of me wondered if he was fibbing.
I haven't gone online to check. I guess I'll take him at his word.
But that night at dinner, Doug and I were thinking that we could just chat up anyone and sell a tale. Something, anything... he could be anyone and I'm his tag-along wife or vice versa... I'm the bigshot smarty pants expert at something and he's along for the ride.
We didn't get the opportunity... we kind of kept to ourselves. But we talked about it and made up great fictions for ourselves, and suspended our reality for a bit.
Yep, flutes and piccolos really get that expensive. Even more so -- high-end flutes can be made from silver, gold, and even platinum. High-end piccolos are usually made of wood. Fun fact: most of the tonal quality of a flute comes from the head joint Flautists who aren't flush with cash will often upgrade just the head joint of their instrument to get most of the benefit for a lower cost. The things you learn working with a flautist!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a waitress, I could do a pretty good generic Southern accent, and I was working on Cape Cod so it was mostly tourists who would only see me once. I used to daydream about inventing a background for myself and adopting an accent for a day. I came really close one day, but never managed to get up the guts. :(