I am a shy person by nature. I attribute this to my sheltered, only-child upbringing in the wild mountains of Altadena. I am therefore not usually inclined to conversations with random strangers, no matter how hot they are. However, the other night I had occasion to chat with two of these in succession, out of the blue and a bit less akwardly than you might expect. I was stationed at the Burbank airport anticipating my father's imminent arrival on Alaska Airlines flight 395. It was an hour and a half late due to a faulty lavitory door which, understandibly, had to be replaced prior to takeoff. Don't want the embarrassing situation of the door flying off in turbulence, exposing Jim the plumber's hairy naked corpus mid-dump to the entire planelength of soon to be horribly scarred human sardines. Anyway, back in the baggage claim area I stood waiting in the almost empty, slightly cramped space. There was one other person there, a girl by the name of Hslneagb (I'm bad at remembering these things), who was also waiting patiently for her father's arrival. We got to talking, and quickly discovered that we were the same person, but of different genders. Similar upbringing, similar interests, similar skills, similar beliefs, similar professions, similar ideas, etc. It was actually a little eerie, like she was stalking me Single White Female-ish, except that she made sure I knew she had a boyfriend within just a few minutes of the conversation. We talked for the whole hour and a half about all kinds of random things, beyond just isn't-the-weather-a-thing and can-you-believe-that-traffic-place that usually populates stranger-speak. Anyway, long story short the plane finally arrived and we went to greet our respective fathers (it was, by coincedence, Father's Day). My dad came over to me, beaming, a small asian girl in tow. "Chris, I want you to meet someone!" Oh crap. She looked sheepish and akward, but smiled at me expectantly. "This is Grsbson (perhaps it was something else, now that I think about it). She and I sat next to each other on the plane. She graduated from UCLA the same year you did!" In a brilliant attempt at humor, I said, "Wow. It's surprising that I've never seen you before." See, there are about 9000 people in each graduating class, there were 800 people in my major, and I usually had 400 people in each classroom with me. I thought it would be a funny joke. Her smile fell like a toddler on stilts. I recovered quickly. "Oh, is that a dog?" I pointed at her dog. The smile returned somewhat, and she nodded at the tiny thing in her arms as my dad explained that the two of them had spent the last three or so hours talking about, well, me. "I feel like I know all about you," she said, hiding her slight embarrassment with a laugh. Just as I was about to say something cool, clever, and stylish, her sister ran up and hugged her, careful not to squish the little quivering animal, which looked positively horror-struck at the sudden intrusion. "Well, uh, gee," I proclaimed magnificently. She realized the power and beauty of my statement and we all launched headlong into a pointed four-way silence that buckled the walls and sent the dog into a urinary fit. With full mouth-breathing smiles we stared stupidly at each other until I managed to break the force field with another profundity. "Ok, well, it was nice to meet you. Happy Father's Day!" Huuuuuuuuh. My dad went to pick up his bags and she moved off with her sister, looking back at me as if to say, "you are much more retarded than I was led to believe." When my cargo returned, bags in hand, he asked excitedly, "so, did you get her number?" Sigh.