OZ: Just a Very Strange Set of Co-Inky-Dinks

I had a strange OZ experience yesterday, come to think of it. So bear with me for another long banter. Worked day shift in the bar yesterday. Asked to work Night Bar Tables. Approaching my first table I immediately recognize the devilish good looking man...We'd met once before. It dawned on me in an absurd rush of newly made memory-which was placed in that slot (Will-Never-Need-To-Remember-Again)--that I'd just met this man on January 27 of this year.

I approached him as my recollection of his name surfaced in my mind..."Mr...f-f-FLANnery?" His name sort of manifested itself spontaneously on my tongue without me first consulting my Brain. He looked at me with Zero Rcognition in his eyes... At first.

I began to relate how we met. It was on a flight back to Atlanta from Chapel Hill. He was already seated in first class, and I was in, like, Zone 39...so I was like the 3rd to last soul to board. The other few Zone 39ners were lively folk, and we were all engaged conversationally from newly minted acquaintanceships due to the fact that we all had in common having been loaded on that damn plane last, so that surely there wouldn't be room for any of our bags in the overhead compartments, and as surely as it would be inconvenient, they would all be checked, and would we all then be charged $25 dollars a bag, which is the norm now, yes?

One of these jovial outspoken friendly folk pointed out to the Delta Associate scanning our tickets that a briefcase had been left in the concourse, and soon Mr. Flannery was summoned on the P.A.

We all were giggling and quipping between ourselves who or what the infamous bag-leaving Mr. Flannery would be. Then he showed up moving upstream against all the Zone 37ers, 38ers, and 39ers. He was majestically tall and well built, had a high brow, bold eyes, Irish jawline, Australian tan. He was dressed in an expensive suit and worldly-looking coat, and had the air of a 1920's banker or entrepreneur, appearing to be both a sophisticated gentleman and garrulous gambling trickster.

As he passed, well aware that WE all were aware that HE was the stupid sop from first class, who had just previously been so preoccupied with his cell phone conversation that he'd left his briefcase in the concourse-- we might not have individually joked about his situation outright him being an imposing, attractive, and powerful looking man. But since one or two of us had had a few cocktails in the concourse bar, and the rest of us Zone 39 stragglers we're naturally loquacious and smart-asses to boot-we all ganged up on poor Mr. Fannery who took it in stride.

On his way up the little tube (that connects the concourse to the airplane itself) we shook our heads at him, and I know I said "tsk tsk tsk Mr. Flannery")

Briefcase retrieved, he came loping down the tube thinggy again (do all Aussies "Lope?") and now his little First Class self was at the very back of the line, right on the threshold of the airplane hatch, just waiting for people ahead to be seated so we could finally board. I teased him "you must be Irish, by the sounds of your name Mr. Flannery" , then another 39er said "ooooh, that explains why you left your briefcase, ur drunk, as are all Irishmen all the time."

Mr. Flannery then went on to correct us, that he was indeed AustRAAAlian (he said it just like that), to which I suggested that THAT was the same thing, as they were nearly all descended from drunk, indebted, often Irish criminal-types.

He took the lighthearted teasing well, and I secretly wished he would want to talk to me more. But he sat in first class, and I sat somewhere between the wings and the Tuberculoses Ward in the back.

All of this, I just recounted to Mr. Flannery insomuch as some of the detail was left out. I told it in about 5 run-on sentences, and it dawned slowly on him who I was and how we met. He was flabbergasted that I remembered his name, and then shook his head at the coincidence that I should be serving him 6 weeks later. He introduced me to his wife (much to my chagrin...no not really, she's lovely(American), but he was just a peach!) I noted, in a mark that definitely counted against him, that he drank a stupid drink that made me seriously want to thwack him over the head...Sprite and Syrah over ice...what a nincompoop!

Anyhow, as if this story doesn't get MORE random and WEIRD, but right after we all establish how we met, I look across the bar and my only other Aussie Regular Guest is sitting at the counter. He is a smooth talking, highly attractive, debonair black man with a lilting Aussie accent. "Dan!" I come running over. "you won't believe it! Everything's gone Down Under today!" and I told him about Mr. Make Your Own Stupid Sangria and Leave Your Brief Case in the Terminal and Dan went right over and shook hands with him and struck up a conversation! All the Aussies were converging!!

And you want to know the weirdest thing? Yesterday morning, 8 hours before Mr. Flannery and Dan were to come into my bar nearly simultaneously, I was singing a song in my heart about Australia. I made up the words, though I've already forgotten the melody. It was about blue skies that stretched forever and ever, and blue eyes that would one day take my heart. And red dirt that met the sky and kissed it over all the horizons, and that one day I too would go there.

...and find a blue-eyed descendant of the Irish with an amorous accent...