Monday, July 20, 2009

How can I compete with a tractor trailer???

So I meet this lovely man - born in South Africa so he has that beautiful lilting British accent - at a food co-op in town for an interview about his pet project.

He's fuming.

He has been stood up by a previous appointment (who, I might add, got my man to MOVE his interview with me) and he waited inside the co-op for two hours. This is not a good way to start an interview.

However, he suggests we go somewhere else as he is sick of sitting in this place and so we step outside.

And there we are presented with a lovely set of iron chairs and a table, gracing the sidewalk. A little lawn rolls off to the left and on the store are some extremely pretty window boxes with Gerber daisies in plum and poppy and carrot orange, offset by waterfalls of deep purple lobelia. Very lovely.

So he says, "Oh. Let's sit here." And we do.
And he begins to talk and not 300 feet behind him is U.S. Route 1.
Yes, THAT U.S. Route 1.
The one that goes from the border with Canada to the Keys of Florida.
Today, it is carrying every tractor trailer on the eastern seaboard and I can't hear a word this sweet man is saying.

Wonderful.

5 comments:

Dawn Fortune said...

you've been a reporter for how long and you haven't learned to read lips?? How do you get anything when they close the doors? You can read confidential papers upside down on a police chief's desk, I am sure, but I am stunned that you have not mastered lipreading. For shame!

Queenie said...

Of COURSE I can read lips. But he was speaking with a British accent.....lol....

Libby's Library said...

Well - your description of the setting, is quite wonderful!

Gladys said...

I hate that! I want to know what he said!

Becky said...

How was he feeling after the trucks interrupted the interview?