Wednesday, 01 April 2020, 16:21:45 PST (GMT-8)

 

 

I'm going insane. Assuredly, but not so slowly.

I've seen this sort of thing before. It was unnerving then, and it's unnerving now. A decade or so ago, I visited Las Vegas against my better judgement. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, but my reasons for being there aren't really of any importance. What is memorable is what happened when I was there.

My flight had been a few hours delayed taking off, and since I'm a fan of flights that were late at night anyway, that meant that I was touching down at close to 3AM. Typically I would sleep most of a flight but this time was different. This time I had a platter of tortilla chips and bean dip with my friends before our flight was called for boarding. You know what happens with bean dip. Now imagine this in a 767 cruising at thirty-five thousand feet and the decompression of the cabin at that altitude. It was a world of pain and I never made this mistake a second time. Suffice would be to say that I didn't get a wink of sleep and by the time I landed, I was in no mood to do anything but check into the hotel and sleep for a few hours.

It was around 3:30 that I finally got checked in. On the way to my room, I passed by this trinket shop. It had some interesting merchandise, much of it far better than I had imagined. Some of it was perfect to bring back home to my waiting girlfriend but it being late and my knowing better than to use my bank card on sleep deprivation, I decided I'd come back in the morning.

I woke at about 11. I didn't have anywhere I needed to be for another four hours, so I had a nice brunch and then head downstairs to the shop I had been in the night before.

The shop was gone. It wasn't just gone, it was never there. There were no enclosing walls. There was no different lighting fixtures. There was no merchandise. There was, however, people playing at some slot machines and a beverage bar nearby. So, I had a coffee. The woman that served me was charming but familiar somehow. I decided that if I recognized her, then perhaps I wasn't imagining the shop but that I saw her in it. I asked if she knew of it and where it might be. She said it didn't exist anymore.

You see, horizontal space is a rare commodity in the A sections of the city. There was a store right where I was standing the prior night, but now only eight hours later there was no trace of it at all. The store hadn't been making enough money. At 4AM, the store closed. At 8AM, there was no trace left of it. By 10AM, the slot machines and the beverage bar were operational and open. In six hours, a crew packed all the merchandise, knocked down the walls, painted a fresh coat, laid down carpeting to match the main area, cleaned up the dust, installed a few tons of slot machines, installed plumbing for the bar and it was business as usual.

Six hours. I don't have have a field laptop fully configured in six hours. These people made me look inefficient and left no trace that anything had happened.

Fast forward to today. I'm in Seattle now, and I had a meeting with a recurring client today. I came to the meeting a few minutes early so I sat at the table in the indoor courtyard and read the news for a while. I then proceeded to the meeting.

The room I was in had a large bay window overlooking the entire courtyard that I was just in. A grand view. The meeting only took an hour but at one point I turned around to look out the window and suddenly everything had changed on me. The tables were rearranged. There was a coffee cart that suddenly appeared. Instead of a large tree growing in center, there was now a large fountain. I had only turned my back for a few minutes while I gave my presentation. How could this happen?

I had hoped that there was another efficient ground crew at work, but that was not the case this time. When I asked my client how long the coffee cart had been there, he said only "a few weeks". A few weeks? I checked my computer. It's still the first of the month. What happened? I have no answers, only questions. I hope in time that I figure out what's happened here. I hope it's before I have to wear a white coat.