Hi?

I met Fred P. on a mid-afternoon
elevator ride.
I know because of his nametag...
"Hello, my name is ________!"
His name was Fred P.

I didn't mind his style.
That name tag got to the point quicker
than any amount of bumper stickers
or clever license plates ever could.

I don't blame him either,
his name did have a nice ring to it.
I figured he was either just proud
or really friendly.
At any rate, he was already
one-up on me,
and I didn't know whether it was still a
hand-shaking situation,
or if a hug would now be required,
so I decided to just pretend
like I hadn't heard the introduction
stuck to his left breast pocket.

My biggest struggle now was that
I had to fight off his introduction alone
because everyone else in the building
decided that it would suddenly be a good time
not to use the elevator.

But, inevitably, when you skip
the second half of an introduction,
one person is left open and vulnerable,
and the other gets to
disturb the pulsing silence
with a 12-story attempt
at looking for something important in their
empty backpack;
which I did end up finding,
along with a Tic Tac container and paper clips,
by secretly peeking up at him
through my dark sunglasses.

And this is what I found out...

I could tell that he liked shoes
because he was wearing 2 of them,
and he also liked briefcases and clothes,
and probably socks.

I could tell that his audible voice,
not similar to the
messy upper case bold sharpie strokes he flaunted,
would be more like a
300 lb cat-loving widow
falling down a long flight of stairs.

He looked like a man of undistinguished tastes
and a bland palette,
to whom the term "Haute Couture" was French.
His hobbies probably included
driving in traffic
and blending into very small crowds.

The lines on his face revealed a life of
facial muscles working,
but not too hard.
He did seem to always be thinking,
at least while I knew him,
on the elevator,
long and hard,
mainly because he had to,
like a bored secretary
rummaging through an endless stack
of un-alphabetized index cards.

This was Fred P.
Most people don't know him like I do.
Most people aren't so scared of small talk.