I had a funny Lost in Translation moment the other day. For those of you that haven’t seen that movie, it’s a good way to make two hours feel like five or a five hour flight feel like an eternity. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson make for an strange duo in a strange land. It hits a little closer to home now that we are little farther from home.
Anyway, I walked onto an elevator in a shopping mall and settled in the rear of the car and stood facing the back of the elevator. It was one of those elevators on the exterior of the building with windows to the outside world. When the doors closed and I had my fill of the outdoors I wheeled around and was caught off guard by the reflection in the mirrored door. Here I was standing amongst 10 other human beings of all ages and not one man, woman or child was as tall as my shoulders. Here I was staring blankly at a goofy unobstructed figure in the mirror as if no one else was in the elevator.
When I reached the subway, I looked down to my left and could see down four or five car lengths without anything or anyone lurking about the masses. I looked to my right and three cars down I met eyes with a giant of a man looking over the crowd just as I was. He kind of gave me a crooked smile as he realized that we were probably thinking the same thing, “Damn, I’m a Giant.”
After I walked off the subway with my chest puffed out thinking about how massive of a beast that I was in this land of tiny people I realized that the man I saw was walking toward me. As he passed me I took a mental picture of a man that was about six inches shorter than me. And his chest was puffed up much further than mine.