The Parable of Two Wine Glasses

My friend John texted me one evening last week to say he planned to walk into town and want­ed to stop by our new apart­ment. Where was it?

I gave him the address. I told him to bring some­thing cold. We would sit around the only fur­ni­ture that had been deliv­ered, a din­ing table and four chairs. He said he would see me in less than 30 minutes.

Soon, my phone rang. It was John. His tall-man voice res­onat­ed from the tiled, upstairs arcade in our build­ing. “Where are you?” he said. I walked out my front door. I could see him wan­der­ing around two flights up. “Turn around, look down, and you will see me,” I said. He chuck­led and descend­ed the steps.

When he arrived on my land­ing with his sweater, mes­sen­ger bag, two wine glass­es, and a bot­tle of Alvarinho, we real­ized we had a prob­lem. Shortly before John arrived, an upstairs res­i­dent had passed through the gate to the upper lev­el and left it ajar. When John fol­lowed, the gate swung shut and locked behind him. John looked at me through the impos­ing bar­ri­er and said, “Now what?” It was a hilar­i­ous Darwinian moment when a human foible land­ed. We let out a simul­ta­ne­ous laugh of knowing.

There was a small space next to the ascend­ing met­al bars that might offer an escape. John passed his accou­trements to me and announced he would try to squeeze through. Belly laughs con­tin­ued as my large friend attempt­ed to make him­self small. The moment he was con­tort­ed like Houdini-in-a-glass-box with a leg over the rail­ing, a woman emerged from an adja­cent apart­ment to wit­ness the scene. Adding her own laugh, she pushed a but­ton on the wall behind John, and the gate swung open.

In that instant of rev­e­la­tion, humil­i­a­tion, hilar­i­ty, and relief, the only emo­tion was grat­i­tude. In tan­dem, we blurt­ed out thank you. She didn’t say a word but gave back a smile. Crazy men.

Adjacent to the folderol with the locked gate was one lin­ger­ing ques­tion. How could John walk a mile, pro­cure two glass­es and a chilled bot­tle of wine, in less than 30 minutes?

“Luis’ restau­rant was on the way to your flat, so I stopped in and told him what was up. He gave me two glass­es and the wine,” John explained.

We love Luis’ place. His sim­ple, always tasty dai­ly plate menu is scrawled on a black­board lean­ing against a large pot­ted plant on the street. Soup, quiche, sal­ad, cheese­cake, what’s not to like? A few tables are tucked into a shady niche under an awning in the alley beside his kitchen and bar. You have to arrive ear­ly to get a spot.

I reflect on these sim­ple plea­sures because they didn’t include debate, blame, or con­fu­sion, a flat screen TV, social media, a smart phone (except for John’s entreaties), or the news of the day. These moments were tableaus of humans being human—gracious, friend­ly, accom­mo­dat­ing, help­ful, hap­py, laugh­ing with strangers dur­ing an awk­ward moment.

Leaders can’t sup­ply these uplift­ing social dynam­ics from the top down. In fact, late­ly it seems that they steal such moments from us. When we build our lives among ourselves—listening, learn­ing, relating—we do just fine. Our world is right-side-up.

Yesterday, I ran into Luis as he set tables for the lunch rush. I thanked him for the wine and two glass­es, which I promised to return. He said, “please keep them, they don’t fit in my dish­wash­er, anyway.”

Of course.