Trains go by our offices every day. We can see them out the windows going back and forth hour after hour. It is always fascinating to see what cargo rolls past morning and evening. Boxcars filled with who knows what, coal cars, even a circus train once. This parade is especially visible from our conference room where clients meet. The added benefit of this daily rolling down the tracks it that it provides the perfect distraction from whatever is going on in the meeting. PowerPoints about strategy can hardly compete with a trainload of what used to be an entire building in Goochland.
Now and then, however, during a particularly important meeting, a train will lumber by with language that either fits the meeting perfectly or causes great angst to the person giving the presentation.
Example: Last week we are in a fairly intense meeting when a train rolls past with an intricate piece of calligraphy crafted on the side for us all to see . The car and the artwork coincided perfectly with that climactic point in the meeting when the listener should be getting ready to hear the pivotal subject.
Speaker: “What we are trying to say in very plain terms is this.” Pause.
Train rolls past with these ornately graffiti’d words: “Bite me.”
The clients looked out the window at just the right moment. The message was not lost on them.
It has always seemed that sponsors should be shrink-wrapping trains and 18-wheelers with cool messages to make their passing pay for some of these services. Instead, we get treated to car after car of Chris Rock-ish, Lenny Bruce-isms – which is quite entertaining, especially since the timing is better than a Robin Williams monologue.
As I type this last sentence, looking for a profound ending to this blog, a train just passed with these words: “Kissith My Asseth.”
Very King James-ian.