Where I come from...

           “Where I come from, we don’t do it like that.”

           That’s not the first time that I heard Allen say that. It began when I picked him up at the airport. I was waiting for what I thought was where his plane was letting off its passengers, when he snuck up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around, those were the first words he said as he pointed at something at the nearest cafeteria. I had no idea what it was he was talking about, so I just responded with that old cliché, ‘different strokes for different folks” and he laughed like he had never heard that line before.

           We talked a lot in the car as I drove him to the office. He had some kind of accent, but I had no idea what it was. It was completely unfamiliar to me. He had flown in from Australia, but I knew that he was not speaking with an Aussie accent. I watch a lot of Australian t.v. shows on Netflix.

           We had just come out of the car when he said the phrase again. He was pointing at a man walking a dog on a leash. I couldn’t imagine how that could have been done any differently, unless the dog was walking the man. Before I could ask him what he meant, he repeated my phrase of ‘different strokes for different folks.’ I just laughed, and he smiled back at me. 

           His company and ours are both in the same business – satellites. The idea that we both have is that we can share some discoveries and in that way benefit both of our companies. The Australians contacted us right out of the blue. We had never heard of them before. But they convinced us that even though ours is a competitive technological business, there is still some room for sharing ideas that are mutually beneficial.  So it is important to us that we treat this man well.

           We drove straight to the hotel where he would be spending the night. Allen looked a little confused when we went to the check-in desk, so I completed the process for him. I could see that when he was handed the card that was his key to open the door to his room, he was even more mystified, so we went to his room together. The elevator unnerved him a little, but he tried not to let it show. When we got to his room, I took the card from his outstretched hand, without either of us saying a word. Then when the green light came on, I said, half-jokingly, ‘Ah green means go. The key works.” He, of course replied, “Where I come from we do not have such things.”  He wasn’t smiling when he said it, so I replied, “It took me a while to learn how to operate it. A key should be a key, not a card.” He gifted me with a big smile.

The Presentations

           As he begins his video show I am impressed, as are my colleagues as well. It has a three-dimensional quality, the likes of which I have never seen before. Of course, I wanted to say, ‘Where I come from, we don’t do it like that,” but I knew that our visitor would be the only one to get the joke, so I said nothing.

           There were lots of questions after his presentation. Allen’s answers often brought out further questions, as he used a number of terms that we were not familiar with. Frequently he was asked, ‘How do you spell that?’  He replied with a slow presentation of many letters.

           When it came time for our presentation, Allen sat down beside me, which I took as a compliment. He brought out of his pocket what looked a lot like a pen, but was clearly very different. It lit up in several colours, and he used it to write on his computer screen. It almost literally flew across the screen as it wrote. I had never seen the like before. After a few minutes of watching him in fascination, I leaned over towards him and whispered, “Where I come from, we don’t do it like that.” He came close to a giggle in reply.

After the Presentations

           After the presentations, 10 of us, including Allen of course, walked to the nearest restaurant for a kind of celebration of our sharing of ideas. Allen sat beside me. When he was given a menu, he stared at it as if it was in a foreign language. He then very quietly asked me ‘What is in this?’ to just about every item. I described each one as completely as I could. Then he asked me what I was going to have, and he ordered the same thing.  When the waitress asked us what we wanted to drink, he did not hesitate to ask for the same craft beer that I had ordered. We both had a chocolate sundae for dessert.

           I drove him to the hotel, and he thanked me for all my help. He took his key-card out of his pocket and said ‘No worries’, a phrase he had heard several times in the restaurant.

The Next Morning

           The next morning I picked him up at the hotel, and drove him to the airport. At his own request, it was very early in the morning, when it was still dark. When we got to the airport, he asked me to stop the car near the entrance to the parking lot, beside a small, forested area, the trees there being not very tall. When I asked him ‘why’, he said that he would explain.

           When we stopped, he got out of the car and asked me to do likewise. Then, with grand hand and arm gestures, he said “Where I come from, things are very different from all this that you have here.” I had to ask him, “Where exactly are you from that is so different from here?”

I couldn’t be more surprised by his answer. “First, I will tell you that I am not from Australia. I have only seen it from the sky. Second, I want you to look directly into the western sky.” I did as he asked. He pointed to a tiny light that shone into the still dark sky. “I am from there. And my name is not actually Allen.  You wouldn’t be able to say it. In my joking way, I changed one letter in the name I gave you.” 

           I then spoke. “I think I know what letter you changed.  You changed an -i- to the second -l-. You are an ‘alien’.” 

           “You’re right. And I will be going to my home soon when the satellite that you can’t see or in any way detect lands in this small forest, and I go inside it. I hope I know you well enough that you won’t tell anyone what I just told you. I don’t want to make you forget.”

           “Agreed.. Where I am from, the only safe and acceptable way of doing that is by becoming very old.”

           We shook hands and both departed to where we came from.