Sliding Doors*

I could not find my dress shoes this morning. I scoured every closet, every shelf, every nook, and every cranny for over half an hour before resigning to slacks and brown loafers. I was all dressed when my mom came in and inquired of my dour expression. "Why so glum, chum?" she asked, surprisingly chipper for having spent the entire day prior in not one but two hospitals, in two different states, for two totally unrelated reasons.

"I'm not killing it today," I told her, "I can't even find my shoes." She suggested that if my room were not such a disastrous mess, then perhaps I would be able to find what I was looking for. A fair but frustrating assessment of the situation.

I looked down at the floor, paused, surveyed the landscape. And there they were, right in front of my face, wrapped in a yellow sarong I had acquired from a guest house in Costa Rica last summer. I remembered having packed them in the cloth after dinner at The Fat Duck, the last time I had worn them.

Already fully dressed but unsatisfied with my attire, I weighed the costs and benefits of changing into another outfit. Fortunately, I did not fall victim to a classic error in the cost-benefit analysis exercise. I changed.

Running late, I unsurprisingly caught every red light on my way to the train. I took a left on red, and tires a'screeching searched the parking garage for a space, especially difficult well after rush hour, when most spaces are filled. As I was getting out of my car in the only spot left on the third floor, I dropped my phone between the seats. It was dark, and I had no idea where it had landed. Train was leaving in 4 minutes. I still had to find my phone, get my bag, lock the car, get out of the garage, and run all the way to the platform. Basically, I was a dead man.

A run turned to a sprint. I could hear the toot toot of the approaching train. Do you want to make this train? I asked myself. Yes, I do. I slipped in as the doors slid closed behind me.

Was life trying to tell me something this morning? Maybe. All I can hope is that I never regret sprinting for that train.



*Inspired by Peter Howitt's 1998 film of the same name, starring Gwyneth Paltrow