It's a too small world

For some reason, I've been continuously running into an inordinate amount of people who went to school with me lately. Not that it's bad, but seriously, what are the chances? Then after thinking about where I run into these people I concluded that considering the character of my commute routes and usual hang outs it's really not that hard to see why I keep running into old schoolmates.

Just this morning I ran into someone who I was on staff with me at the lit mag on campus (I know. Literary magazine. How geeky. Shut it.). I've seen people pass me on the street and get on subway cars too fast for me to talk to them, but they've been swarming around. But Tuesday night's run in is really itching at me.

Sometimes the connection between me and the people I run into can be as tenuous as the fact that we had the same class together. But that's a whole couple of months. I mean, sure, we might've sat at the opposite ends of a lecture hall or only talked to each other once to say "You think you did ok?" when handing in that final or something, but at least I can place them somewhere. Not this time.

On Tuesday evening I was at the Bowery Ballroom to see ¡Forward, Russia! (Also, boo to all of you who could not go with me to see them. You know who you are. Seriously, quit your jobs, get fired or drop out of grad school so you can go see shows with me on Tuesdays. We used to stay up until 3 am back in the day, man. We operated on 3 hours of sleep max. What happened? We aren't that old. There's no reason I should be alone up front getting Tom Woodhead's spittle on me as I headbang. Though I will say I met a nice girl who was an excellent concert buddy. Anyhow, back to the story...). I was handing over money to a guy at the register to buy my ticket when he says something. I wasn't paying attention, so he repeats, "Hey, did you go to X?"

"Yea!" I say a bit too excited. After a minute of weirding him out by staring at him trying to figure out how this guy knows me and not answering his question of whether I wanted to go in or not I blurted out, "Where do I know you from?"

He looked at me and said in a "duh" voice, "Ha, because I went to X?"

OK, maybe I worded it wrong. I probably should've asked "How do you know me from X?" But come on, it was implied that I wanted the details. There was a line behind me and I wasn't going to get in the way of letting someone do their job (ignore the "get fired or quit" statement I made above). Unfortunately, he was not around when the show ended. In the really random chance that he does come across this (Hell, considering how this week has been going, I wouldn't be surprised.), I'm going to get all Craigslist here:

Mr. Bowery Ballroom ticket guy,

Seriously, this is going to bug me for a while. I hate being left curious about stuff. I know, I'm neurotic like that. When applied to me, "Curiousity killed the cat" isn't a cautionary proverb about letting sleeping dogs lie (see how I layered on the maxims like that? And interspecies, like? Lit Mag 4 Life, son.), it's about the cat getting an ulcer after randomly thinking every now and then, "Seriously man, what the fuck was that?" for weeks. On top of that, I feel like a total douche that I did not recognize you. I mean, you didn't know my name so it wasn't like you were so and so's friend or something. And it's not like I was involved with Greek life stuff so I'm suspecting it's something more random. Same major? Was it a class?

I'm sure it's probably something like you saw me walking around on campus. I won't think it's weird. I had funny colored hair then. It wasn't uncommon for people I had never seen before my entire academic career to stop me and ask for hair dying tips or to say "Hey, I've seen you around. You had bright red hair last year."

Sincerely,

That chick you recognized who was buying a ticket to see ¡Forward, Russia!