Where are the tapas?

Were you near High Street yesterday afternoon?  If yes, did you see a brown woman in a miniskirt and a flowy crepe duster whiz past you on an electric scooter?  Was she cursing under her breath?  Was her wig askew (but makeup flawless)?  Was her jaw clenched and did she sometimes scream “look out” to fully parked cars?  Was she wobbling, jerking, testing the very limits of her balance and questioning all her life choices?  No? Then you totally missed me.

It went down like this.  An entrepreneur friend and I had gone back and forth on text, talking strategy.  “Let’s just meet for a couple hours and discuss in person” he said.  A business meeting.

As a Big Law associate, meetings were pretty formulaic.  Conference room.  Printouts. 15 hours of followup work raining down from the sky on my head.  Even during my time at Wendy’s there was a pretty set formula.  PowerPoint slides.  Thoughtful strategic discussion.  Sometimes burgers showed up.  Always someone ran in late, apologizing.  (Me.)

Still, I’m not so completely rigid.  I’ve had meetings over steaming bowls of ramen in Tokyo and in tour buses at conferences.  I’ve had airplane meetings.  And walk and talks.  And I’m fully aware – enthusiastic even – that in this new, small business phase of my life often “meetings” look and feel more like “hanging out.”  But this thing yesterday was some next level ish.

“I’ve got something fun planned” a text comes in from him that morning.  I assumed he meant tapas.  So, donned in the perfect tapas attire, I show up on High Street, ready to talk business and eat olives.

“Get on.” he says, gripping an electric scooter, grinning, enjoying immensely the look of horror on my face.

“Do what now?”  I examine the scooter.  “Where are the tapas?”

“You’re the bougiest person I know.” he says, opening the Bird app on his phone to pay for the scooter.  I thank him for the compliment, step a bedazzled shoe on the platform and grab the handles.

We scoot down the road and I threaten to abandon him, the city, this life at every corner.  Folks jump out of my way, and I shout apologies to them, and curses at my “friend”.   A truck driver leans out his window and shrugs as if to say “nothing about this is right” and I silently agree, breeze whipping through my wig and up my skirt.  I pray pray pray I am not flashing everyone.

“The thing says we are supposed to wear helmets” I shout, noting our exposure and the looming liabilities.  I remember I don’t have life insurance.

“You’re lawyering up the experience.” he says.  He is right, but I still take offense.

We scoot across heavy traffic, over hills and across a rocky path so bumpy it jostled my very DNA.  I’m dripping sweat in 90 degree heat.  We scoot to what maybe was once a homeless camp under a freeway?  And there we stop.  He grins again.  I do not.  I adjust my wig and shift my skirt down.  I had been flashing people.

I’m getting to my point.  Here it is.  Since starting Yubi, I’ve had to be more flexible than ever about my expectations.  When that damn scooter was first presented I thought I would just end the meeting.  But I knew the meeting would be valuable – there was information I needed.

Also, that’s only half the truth.  Because however directly in opposition to my desire for self preservation riding that scooter was, it was completely compatible with my desire for growth.  We live in protective boxes.  Years of experimenting and sampling and mistakes and successes have made the walls of my box semi-permeable. I let in the fresh air.  And this had promised to be fresh.

It is cool under the freeway and a breeze blows just enough.  Rumbly rush-hour traffic overhead and wild weedy green grasses below.  Tags on tags on tags.  Among blue and yellow and green graffiti someone has simply tagged “Butt” in bright orange.

There are train tracks and we walk along them for a bit until we reach a rickety bridge over a river.  It was like something out of a book we were forced to read in high school, but like, less racist.  We talk about trademarks and marketing strategy, tech bro stuff and sales.  Among the pebbles and grass there is a used hypodermic needle and a strange pile of Kleenex.  It is time to go.

We scoot back to civilization mostly without incident and abandon the scooters at my car.  I say goodbye and sit in my car taking down a few notes before driving home.  I drive off thinking about the experience, and decide it was a really good meeting.  The only thing that could have made it better is tapas.  Next time I will wear pants.