True Ties

Posted by John

I’d like to think that things are returning to a relative level of normalcy here in Nashville after the flood, but of course that’s easy for me to say sitting where I am. I know there are still tons of people out there struggling to figure out how they’re going to put their home or business back together. No doubt the adrenaline of the first few days has completely worn off and given way to a harsh reality that between insurance and FEMA and shady contractors there won’t be enough money to rebuild soon enough or well enough, leaving an indelible gap not just in their pocket books but in the perception of what their house used to be or what they dreamed it could become; a gap that wouldn’t exist if not for 36 hours of heavy rain a few weeks ago.

While I don’t want to easily forget those that are still struggling, I also don’t want to dwell too long on what happened because certainly they are eager to move on as well, as best they can. Therefore I’ll be taking this opportunity to move back into the more comfortable territory of insensitively and profanely blowing my own trivial issues out of proportion in an effort to make them sound more significant than anyone with actual real issues to deal with in their lives.

All of the recent activity in Nashville has coincided with a lot of business and personal travel for me, which I haven’t minded all that much if for no other reason than to get somewhere where there isn’t a ban on non-essential water uses. But if there’s one thing that’s certain about travel, it’s always accompanied by awkward personal interactions.

The other week I had to take a road trip to Alabama with an older engineer whom I’ve never even spoken to before and who reminds me of Droopy, the cartoon dog. Looks and sounds just like him and once you have an image like that in your head it’s hard not to giggle to yourself every time he speaks. It’s always bad enough going through the forced getting-to-know-you conversations that come with being trapped in a small car with somebody for several hours, but it’s even worse when it’s painfully obvious you have nothing in common with the person. The only thing worse is if one of those things you don’t have in common is a severe case of overactive flatulence. Fortunately that wasn’t the case for either of us but I was subjected to some of the dude’s unavoidable character quirks, which made the whole experience almost unbearable.

For instance, he spent half the drive steering the vehicle with his knees while he fumbled through text messages on his phone. Now, I know that everyone texts while they drive, regardless of how dangerous it is, and I’m fine with that if you’re willing to risk your own goddamn life to do it. But do not for one second think that I’m going just happily sit there in the passenger seat while you’re careening all over the highway trying to find out what boy your daughter is taking to the high school dance. Holy shit, I was sweating bullets the entire time we were on the road. This guy didn’t look like he had the technical savvy to operate a cell phone while seated in a stable chair in a padded room, let alone whilst operating a motor vehicle at 70 miles per hour. I had to close my eyes to prevent my hand from instinctively grabbing for the goddamn steering wheel to prevent the car from launching off a cliff or something. At one point within a 30 second span the tires of the car hit the rumble strip on the left side of the highway followed shortly thereafter by the rumble strip on the right side. Dear God, I’m not a religious man but you better believe I was praying to sweet Baby Jesus to do me a solid and get me through the ordeal alive. The only saving grace for my nerves and loose bowels was the fact that this guy had the bladder of a 6-year-old girl. No shit, we stopped every 30 minutes on this trip. We hit every rest stop in the I-65 corridor from Tennessee to Alabama. At first it was just annoying as hell but then I started to anticipate the breaks and pray they’d come sooner if for no other reason than to clean out my underwear after another 30 miles of narrowly missed guardrails and ditches and semi trucks.

That trip was followed a few days later by another one with a crazy German dude who I’ve never traveled with before. He was actually a much safer driver and much more interesting company, right up until we took a lunch break at a Subway in bum-fuck Arkansas and I took the opportunity of being outside the water conservation zone of Nashville to immediately head to the john to wash my hands only to look up in the mirror to see the goddamn German standing inside the single-person bathroom with me. “Fucking-A, dude! What the hell are you doing in here? I don’t know how you do shit in socialist Germany but in socialist America we go into single-person bathrooms one single person at a time!” For Christ’s sake, I had to actually brush past him just to get the door open so I could get the hell out of there. I can tell you definitively that your relationship with another person changes dramatically after you’ve been in a small single-person bathroom with them.

Both of those trips were preceded by an overnighter to southern Georgia for a visit to a construction site with one of the top dogs in the department. Now, I’m no stranger to constructions sites so I know how things go and I know the most important thing on a construction site is not being a dumbass. Being a dumbass can come in many different forms out on site ranging from stepping in wet concrete to flipping on a switch and electrocuting the dude on the ladder installing the light to inadvisably stopping for lunch to eat fried chicken, green beans and cabbage at a dirty-ass, greasy meat and three only to find yourself 30 minutes later on some remote part of the site rocking the thunder mug in the most godawful port-o-pot ever conceived by man while praying to little Baby Jesus to spare your colon from any more trauma. Those would all be considered dumbass moves on a construction site.

One of the simplest dumbass moves is to show up on site sticking out like a sore thumb dressed like a douchebag so that every contractor on the job knows exactly who you are. They already hate their jobs and their lives so the absolute last thing you want to do is be identified as the one guy who they hate the most – the dumbass engineer who put the construction drawings together. So if you want to blend in you need to wear the proper job site uniform - jeans, work boots, a flannel or polo and leave all your accessories at home. No watches, name brand sunglasses, or deodorant. You need to fit in.

So like I said, I'm no stranger to being on a job site and unfortunately I'm no stranger to being a dumbass on site. Fortunately I've learned my lessons and those days are largely behind me so I was more than prepared for this particular trip. We were flying out on a Monday afternoon having put in a half day at the office so I had packed my bag ahead of time with everything I’d need. At least that’s what I thought right up until we were actually boarding the plane and the top dog turned to me and said, “It’ll be a good idea for us to wear ties on site tomorrow in case we run into anyone important.”

I looked at him and thought he couldn’t possible be serious. I mean, we were going to a goddamn construction site. Who in the hell important were we going to run into? Bob Vila and Ty Pennington?

Not only did I not have a tie in my bag, all I had was a pair of jeans, polo and work boots – standard attire for blending in on site. But it was clear from dude’s expression that he was not kidding so I said, “Well then, we’re going to need to stop at Wal-mart because I’m going to need a tie,” and in my head I was thinking, “and a shirt and a pair of pants because I am not wearing this same goddamn outfit on site tomorrow…”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, “I always travel with extra ties. What color shirt will you be wearing?”

Is this guy seriously bullshitting me? I have a goddamn polo shirt in my bag. That’s it! So I deliberately looked down at the button-down shirt I was wearing and said, “Well, I’ll be wearing blue.”

“Great! I have the perfect tie.”

All I could think in that moment was, “Holy shit, I’m going to be douching all over that site like a dumbass tomorrow.”

So the next morning I got up, put on the exact same clothes I’d worn the day before, and went down to meet the dude in the hotel lobby.

“Here you go,” he said, tossing a tie to me. I caught it, looked at the tie, looked back at him, looked back to the tie, then looked back to him and thought to myself, “He has got to be fucking kidding me!” Not only did his “perfect” black and red tie not even remotely come close to matching my blue shirt, it was so hideous an elementary school principal wouldn’t even wear it. Again, the only thought in my head was, “I am going to be the biggest douching dumbass on that job site today.”

So I tied the tie, tightened it up to my neck with more than just a little more than contempt and looked across to the dude when I realized what he was wearing. You sonofabitch! You’re wearing a white shirt with a goddamn blue tie! You could have worn this stupid ass piece of shit and at least given me the tie that would have matched my shirt? You saw this goddamn shirt yesterday!

So there I was, 15 minutes later, walking up to the muddy-ass construction site wearing dress shoes, slacks, a button-down blue shirt, and a black and red necktie that looked like one of the upholstery options for the 1992 Dodge Neon. I might as well have been wearing a siren for a top hot and been carrying a bullhorn to announce to the entire place, “Hey! Hey, look at me! I’m the dumbass engineering that made the construction drawings that have been the bane of your existence for the past 12 months! Please direct all of your animosity directly at me for the next 8 hours!!!”  

I know it sounds like I’m blowing this out of proportion; it’s only a necktie, right? But what you don’t understand is the fragile ecosystem that is a construction jobsite. Most of these people are just one bad day away from going postal and you never know what the last straw will be. So I spent the entire rest of the day feeling like the self-conscious douche I was as every single contractor on site paused, looked, did a double take, and clearly thought o himself, “Now who on earth does this douche think he is? Oh wait! You’re the goddamn engineer!...” I was so livid but all I could do was stare back at them threateningly with a look that said, “Don’t even think about crossing me! If you think you hate life now just wait until after lunch when I rock the thunder mug in the only port-o-pot on site with a fury and vengeance you’ve never seen before assholes!”

Unfortunately the quality of this photo doesn’t come close to doing the tie justice, as I was trying to covertly snap the shot with my phone while no one was looking.