n amazing thing in the elevator yesterday.

It was a long day at work, very frustrating. I was an hour late getting out, it was raining and I still needed to go all the way across town for a train ops session that would last until 11pm. Long day.

While on the elevator, two guys from the middle floors of the building got on, one an office worker, the other a maintenance guy (complete with a ladder over his shoulder). And they were continuing their conversation from their lobby.

The salaryman: “Yeah, I loved it. As a hunter, it really appealed to me. The whole thing, the exotic locale, the chateau, of being hunted. It was amazing. It’s always been my favorite.”

The office guy was getting off at two. The doors opened. He stepped out. The doors closed. In the one short flight to one, I looked at the maintenance guy with the ladder.

Me: “One of us will sleep in this bed tonight. The other will be in the yard, amidst the dogs.”

Maintenance guy: “It was softest bed Rainsford ever slept in.”

We broke up laughing at the perfect synergy of this moment. I’d figured the book they were discussing was The Most Dangerous Game. In the end, the hunted hero doubles back and hides in the hunter’s high bedroom, with its open window and its yard full of vicious hunting dogs. The villain makes the observation that one will live and one will die, bed or dogs. Section break. And the hero enjoys the bed. Perfect ending.

That was just amazing, that all three of us knew a 1924 adventure story about an elitist hunter and his desire to hunt the most dangerous game (i.e. man). And even though the day had sucked and the traffic was terrible and the evening was long, it was still just a delight to make that one shared literary connection, that the two of us (at opposite ends of age and income) had shared this wonderful tale.

>>>BUY A BOOK FROM MY EFFORTS AND MAYBE SHARE A MOMENT WITH SOMEONE<<<

Note: I might have gotten the quote a little wrong (haven’t checked). But it was close enough.