Weird Day

Today was weird day. All over the place.

As a part of my job, I am taken out to lunch meetings by insurance company representatives. Eliot Spitzer might have you think that this is a lower form of influence peddling. I have a few things to say in response to Mr. Spitzer, the first being: good luck running for president someday, I'll vote for you, I think, even though you have single handedly made my work a living hell. The second: These free lunches are not always fun. And sometimes afterwords, you are haunted. And it in no way effects where I place my business.

Today, I met with a longtime associate and his new boss. His new boss is one of those guys who travels 6 days a week, lives on these lunches and intimately knows the minibars of Hyatt Hotels. In all seriousness, this man was mentally ill. And I am completely disturbed.

Lunch was set to introduce me to Mr. New Boss. But Mr. New Boss NEVER engaged in any kind of conversation through the lunch. Well, except when we talked about Seinfeld. Which was about 5 different times. I think the rep kept bringing Seinfeld up so that Mr. New Boss would enter in to the conversation. He was completely spastic, kept getting up and walking away, playing with his blackberry. He was completely unable to keep still or function for more than three minutes without changing something pretty drastically.

The rep kept things under control as well as he could. But then Mr. New Boss noticed that he had gotten some of his Udon broth onto his shirt. He pretty much freaked out. Completely. Okay. When I said before that all he joined us in conversation about was Seinfeld? Amend that. Add freaking out about japanese soup dribble. We talked about that for a long time. He doused his spots of Udon juice with water at the table. He bitched about dry cleaning. He even tried to cover the spot with his tie (which was an impossible feat, giving that gravity doesn't allow ties to lay at 45 degree angles to the ground).

So, Wow. Is this what he's like all the time? If so, Wow. If not, gosh, I hope he's alright. But really, this was a man who was sick. I'm not dishing this out to be all, "Get a load of the dude who I had to eat with today..." But instead, I'm saying, Damn, this is what "functional" mental illness looks like. Was he manic? Is this ADHD in adulthood? OCD? It's all possible. It was really weird.

So I can't stop thinking about this very weird guy, with his big white buck teeth veneers. It just makes me sad. This sad, crazy, lonely guy. Of course he loves his Seinfeld, because when you get back to your hotel every night, there's always a rerun on.

"What's the deal with Udon noodles? They just drip on to your shirt!" Ha. Today could have been quite an episode of Seinfeld... But I'm in no way as mean as the characters on that show. Instead, I'm all bothered and I hope that guy gets some serious help. Soon. It's just so weird!!!