One of the sales managers and I at work have a bizarre ritual where in the morning we mock shoot at each other. I have commented on this before, I think [1], but today there was a new context in that we did not wait for our time in the office, but rather we both arrived at the same time. In the parlance of our mock-gangsta duels, we called it a drive-by. Having lived in some rough areas in my life, namely East Tampa and South Central Los Angeles, I said that a drive-by was how I rolled. This is an exaggeration, but only a slight one. I have never been a particularly violent person, but I have certainly seen my fair share (and probably more) of fights, though thankfully never an actual murder being committed (although I did once see a man die of knife wounds while a Catholic priest gave the last rights and his grieving girlfriend sobbed loudly, and that is an experience that I do not think I will ever forget). What would lead two people, neither of whom is remotely violent by nature, to pretend to shoot each other on a daily basis? I suppose I am the wrong person to ask this question to. This might be a common activity for people who play first person shooters, but that is not a habit of mine either.

This mystery is perhaps deepened a bit when one considers the source of today’s title, a song by one of my favorite bands [2]. The song “Drive By” is by this San Francisco-based band, and the song itself (which was a top 20 hit for an album that went gold and probably made the band as a whole worthy, as they stand today, to receive a post in my Rock & Roll Hall of Fame snubs in about 2024 or so, if I am still blogging by then). The song itself uses the drive by as a metaphor for running away from a relationship. As a single man, I am perhaps a bit too sensitive to the posts my friends endorse that talk about a phobia of commitment, as I feel at least slightly targeted by them, even though this may not be the case, evidence (if any were necessary) of the fact that I am a somewhat prickly and sensitive person by nature in such areas of life. The narrator of the song (presumably the singer, although not necessarily so) is attempting to renew a relationship with a woman after having initial success and then panicking about it, leaving her to flee hundreds of miles away until by chance they meet again. His excuse is that he was not trying to take advantage of her and hit and run, so to speak, but rather he claims to be timid and got scared when he realized how much he felt for her. Whether this is a true reason or just an excuse is hard to say; there are somewhat timid people out there, but most of them are not timid after having smoothly seduced someone to begin with, but are timid all the way through the courtship process.

Today at work, though, there was definitely a drive by of a sort. Although I have yet to partake of any of the food trucks that come to our office, there are now three food trucks that each come once a week to the office where I am posted. Food trucks happen to be immensely popular in Portland [3], and I am not opposed to them in principal. In practice, though, I have yet to find any of the menus that meet my somewhat picky and demanding standards for food preparation or menu items. Today was the first time we had a third truck (in the past we had one on Mondays, and a second one on Fridays). This food truck made an understandable but definitely lamentable rookie mistake in underestimating the amount of food that my coworkers like to order during their lunch breaks. Within two hours or so after arriving, they had run out of hamburger patties, and within another hour after that, barely halfway into their scheduled time, they had run out of food altogether, forfeiting a substantial profit from hungry people with flushed wallets and low impulse control. The owners and operators of the food truck claimed that they will bring more food next time. It would be wise to do so, even if I do not expect to stand in line to wait for cheese sandwiches myself. Alas, there are no drive-bys for me when it comes to eating at work, sometimes I barely have the chance to leave my desk.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/11/15/have-i-been-lost-inside-myself-and-my-own-mind/

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/album-review-for-me-its-you/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/album-review-train/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/sometimes-i-think-im-the-only-cab-on-the-road/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/a-musing-on-liner-notes-an-imaginary-history-of-train/

[3] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/exploring-pdx-part-one/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/exploring-cartlandia/