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Author's Note: You don't often get the chance to
have this kind of fun ... when you do ... it would be a shame not to take
advantage of it.
This story, and many others, can be
found in Brad's book,
One Shovel Full - Telling
Stories to Change Beliefs, Attitudes, and Perceptions.
As the
Director of Training for the Atari Corporation in 1980, I was responsible
for the training and development programs for Atari throughout the world.
At the time this story
happened I was visiting one of Atari's manufacturing facilities in Puerto
Rico and staying at the Holiday Inn in San Juan.
I arrived at
the Holiday Inn the night before I was to visit the Manufacturing plant.
I had dinner at the hotel, took a short nap, and at about 10pm
decided to go down to the hotel's "hot spot" and listen to the
band while I watched the locals dance to the music.
The only seats available were at the bar, so I grabbed one and made
myself comfortable.
It wasn't
too long before I noticed that the woman sitting next to me looked very
depressed. She was staring
into her drink, oblivious to the world around her, with a look on her face
that suggested she had just lost a carload of loved ones in a terrible
accident. As I thought about
what might be wrong, it dawned on me that she might feel better if she
could talk to someone, so I asked, " Would you like to talk about
it?"
She looked
up at me and said, "No!"
I smiled,
shrugged my shoulders, and turned back to watch the dancing.
A couple of minutes later I heard her say, "Yes."
I turned around, looked at her, smiled and waited for her to begin
talking.
I didn’t
have to wait for long, in a challenging, demanding voice, she asked, “Do
all men walk around the hotel room in their underwear?”
I didn’t
quite know what to say. From the tone of her voice I obviously couldn’t say the
first thing that came to me mind, “No…some walk around with nothing
on.” Instead, I took the
question as rhetorical and didn’t say anything.
She got a
disgusted look on her face and said, "Well, I don't like it.
It seems to me that he could have gotten dressed when he got up, or
not stripped down until we were ready to go to bed; especially since I
told him I didn't like it!" I
smiled in an understanding way and waited for her to continue.
It turned
out that she had come down to San Juan with her boy friend for a week's
vacation. While they had been
intimate, this was the first time that they had stayed together overnight
and even though she was in her early 30's, she was fairly naive when it
came to relating on an intimate level for a full week.
After a fight over what was a proper way to act, the boyfriend
decided that he had had enough and that he was going to go home to New
York City. She could either
go back with him or stay here in Puerto Rico.
"I took
a week's vacation, I paid for a week's vacation and I'm not going to waste
all of my time and money by returning home early,” she exclaimed with
vehemence.
She took a
deep breath, looked at me with indignation on her face and said, "And
after all of this, do you know what happened tonight?"
I shook my head and started to say something encouraging, but she
was on a roll and didn't even pause for a breath.
"I went
out to dinner alone and found myself in a nice restaurant not far from
here. The hostess seated me
at a small table and as I was looking around I noticed a man sitting at
another table not far away. He
looked like another American, but what really drew my attention was the
bandage that covered half of his head and his entire right ear.
I couldn't keep my eyes off of him.
Copyright 1998,
Brad
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