Slush

**Broadway** “Eet’s the most wonderful tiiiiiiiiiime of the yeeeeeeer” **/Broadway**

35 degrees, and steadily raining this morning as I made my way to the train for one more round of “hide and go debug the memory interlacing issue”.

I realized on the plane yesterday that I’m definitely the old guy now. The flight was totally full, and I got the last seat (since I hate queuing up like cattle before boarding). My seatmates were a big atheletic guy on the left, and a geeky jewish 18 year old on the right. Big athlete leans in conspiratorially when I got settled, and boomed out in a battlefield voice laced with gin and beer that he and his buddy had smuggled a quart of Bicardi rum onto the flight, so we were all to order cokes in cups for our drinks, and he could “set us up.”

Once upon a time, I would have thought “Hell yeah! Free drinks!” Last night I thought (though I tried to conceal it) “Ah crap, I have work to get done, and I sit in the drunk a-hole section.” I made up some line about a bad experience with booze and an intercontinental flight, begged off, and buried my head in my Economist. The kid on the other side, however, somehow determined that I was the Cool Slightly Older Guy, and wanted to impress me with the stories of how only the ugly girls in his dorm would sleep with him, and he throws up every time he drinks. Or something like that, I might be mixing up the details. It was a lovely flight.

So yeah, I’m that guy now.

To anyone within range of my voice: If I was ever one of those two characters near you, and it bothered you, I’m very sorry. I didn’t realize at the time that not everyone shares that definition of “cool.” Further, if I am currently some other irritating character, drop me a direct, unambiguous note and I’ll work on correcting it … or at least not being that guy when you’re around.