DAY SEVEN: WHAT WON’T I DO IN A PARKING LOT?

I sometimes find my cell phone to be a strange thing. I am rather fond of my cell and all, but I still find some of the circumstances which surround particular calls to be odd. Today, in the midst of the first leg of the drive home with the wife I received a call from Philadelphia University wanting to do a bit of a phone interview. Seeing as I was going seventy miles an hour at the time I decided to show a bit of discretion and arrange a more convenient time to chat – which turned out to be an hour-and-a-half later when the wife and I would be passing through Cincinnati. Thus, at around two o’clock we stopped just north of Cincinnati on I-71 and pulled into the parking lot of a Chipotle [one of the few highway-side establishments where a couple of vegetarians can get anything reasonable to eat].

I don’t know if I am old-fashioned or something, but the parking lot of a Chipotle a few miles north of Cincinnati seems an awkward place to do any interview other than one for cleaning said parking lot of a Chipotle a few miles north of Cincinnati. Further, it seems like it could be an awkward story to recount to future students: “Yeah, I interviewed for this job while gulping down a bean burrito and some stale iced tea in a 2001 Jetta.” It feels an inauspicious start to things, but I guess that is the nature of the world I live in now.

I certainly am not clamoring for the old-boys network, corner offices, and nepotism, brandy and cigars – although a nice brandy and good cigar are always lovely things. It is just that cell phone conversations often feel anti-climactic to me, or perhaps simply disjunctive. I am thankful for having my cell – especially during the Iowa years, knowing that I could call my wife while walking between classes – but sometimes I feel like I have lost a specific sense of place when it comes to conversation. At the very least I never thought I would be interviewing for a professorship from the parking lot of a Chipotle off of I-71 a few miles north of Cincinnati [though it turned out to be a rather pleasant chat]. Do I actually yearn for shaking hands with a provost? I don’t know about that, but I guess I will just have to keep looking for a medium and maybe let voice-mail do a little more work.