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I was lounging around one day when I started to receive messages from my best friend, Sausage
The most gorgeous South American man is sitting next to me.
On my bus to
NYC
I replied with a drooly emoji 🤤.
Forty minutes later, I asked her what was happening.
She replied in short bursts. I could only imagine she was texting rapidly at every moment he looked away from her.
Sausage:
Ok so
He rolled up and was like
Is anyone sitting here
Because my bag was on the seat
And I was like nope
And he was like lemme put it in a thingy for you and I was like no don’t worry and his strong Argentinian hands continues to take my bag and find a place for it.
WITH ONE HAND
Me: 🤤
There is something about meeting someone in transit.
Hollywood, loves a meet-cute on transportation. If you have a soul, you would have watched the film Before Sunrise, which saw Jesse and Céline, falling in love on a train in Europe. Jack and Rose fell in love on a cruise liner, although, on this occasion, the transportation got in the way of the romance. James Bond meets Vesper Lynd on a train in Casino Royale. Again, not such a happy ending for Vesper. But the point is – transportation and romance go hand in hand.
It’s no wonder we love a meet-cute in transit. If you don’t meet your lover via an app, you’ll probably meet them at work or through friends. But to meet an attractive stranger crossing the world at the same time as you, seems so unlikely that when it does happen…..you can’t help but start creating a wedding Pinterest board.
I had a great meet-cute on transportation. It began when I attempted to take a bus from Oxford to Heathrow.
It was 6 am, and there was a queue in front of the National Express bus bay at Gloucester Green Station. The bus was late, and we were all getting agitated. A few bays down, a bus pulled out, and it was then that the queue and I realised that the bus reversing, was the bus we were supposed to be on.
One of the queuers, a shiny-head man in a suit, ran over to the bus and began hitting its door. He yelled at the driver to open up and let him on.
The bus station manager wasn’t helpful. “Once the bus has left its bay, it cannot go back into its bay.”
The American, confused at how our country worked, was a little hysterical. “But the bus is empty. All the passengers are here. I’m going to miss my flight!”
The rest of us stood silently, letting the American be the spokesman for our feelings, whilst we mentally drafted up the stern email we would send to National Express.
I was off to America. Therefore, I was probably heading to the same Terminal as the man having a meltdown in the middle of the station. I went over to him and suggested we split a taxi. He glared up at me, pink, out of breath….and agreed.
As soon as we got into the taxi, he apologised for his little outburst. I said it was fine. After all, it was refreshing to see a man express his emotions. Heck, give me a wine cellar, and I’ll fill it with all the bottled-up emotions of the British male.
The drive to Heathrow is usually 50 minutes, but there was a crash on the M40, so it ended up being close to 3 hours. As we sat in the middle of the motorway, the American resigned to the fact that he would miss his flight and wouldn’t make the conference he was supposed to be presenting at. He seemed cool about this…. which was very out of character. Either that, or he was holding it all together remarkably well.
In those three hours, we got to know each other. I discovered he was a neuroscientist, was single and lived in Boston. He also did a TED Talk, which I thought was a brilliant flex.
But he was a little older and lived in Boston…so well…you know.
We got to Heathrow, he paid for his half of the taxi ride, and we parted ways.
(If you’re reading this, concerned that I may have missed my flight…don’t worry. As readers of the Quack know, I’m an overly organised flyer, so I had given myself plenty of contingency time to get to the airport. Despite the three-hour delay, I was there two hours before check-in). *Smug face*
A few days later, the neuroscientist emailed me, telling me that he tested positive for COVID-19, which explained the cough I had.
But minus the virus…. It was a great meet-cute. All you need is to cast Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling, and you’ve got yourself a chick flick.
A lot of the time, meet-cutes are missed. The person next to you on a plane could share the same love for Marmite and make you belly laugh for the next fifty years. You’ll never know this though, because you’re listening to a podcast about the Roman Empire, so the conversation never strikes up.
It’s understandable. You don’t want to risk starting a conversation with someone that’s hot, only to find yourself strapped into a seat for eight hours as they mansplain how aeroplanes work and hint at a bizarre fetish they harbour.
Thankfully, that wasn’t happening to Sausage on her bus.
She texted me a couple of hours into her bus journey.
We’ve been talking for two hours!!!!!
Me: GAAAAAHHH
An hour later, she texted again.
3 HOURS!
Her bus arrived in a blossom-covered Manhattan. The sun was making its first appearance of the year, and the car horns were bouncing off the skyscrapers that were piercing the blue sky. *Romantic setting*
WITH ONE HAND, the South American took Sausage’s bag down from the ‘thingy’, and they stepped off the bus together onto 5th Avenue. She was going south of the island, he was going north.
With one hand, he hailed a yellow taxi for Sausage. No, he didn’t. This is not the 90’s. He waited with her until her Uber arrived. And as they waited, he asked for her Instagram and phone number. Sausage could have melted right there, in front of The Rockefeller Centre.
Then, WITH ONE HAND,
the Argentinian dug into his pocket,
pulled out a lighter
and a cigarette.
Lit it
and inhaled.
…..
And Sausage got the ick.
You can have it all in a meet-cute, but if you get the ick…you get the ick.
Or like me, you get Covid.
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