Life in a Seinfeld episode…

I have long been a fan of Seinfeld—but beyond the quirky comedic take on the “nothings” of life, the beginning and end of this snarky, New York-y show, act as great bookends for important transitions in my life. When the show debuted (I started from the second episode) back in 1989-90 I was a graduate student at Brown University. When the show came to a “hail-and-farewell” finale in the spring of 1998, I had just assumed the duties as head of the History Department at Hackley School.

From time to time incidents, or conversations, in my life seem to have mirrored episodes, or would-be episodes, of this great navel-gazing show. I remember a lunch at a faculty table circa 1997 when I sat down, noticed a colleague’s inventive sandwich, and quickly went to make one just like the colleague had. I sat back down, and a colleague said pointedly to me, “Lisa was right—you are a food copy-er.” What????? “Whaddya mean, Lisa said—I was a food copy-er????” It didn’t sound flattering, but just because I had repeated a turkey melt sandwich that someone else had, I got labeled a Food Copy-er. And why was Lisa saying this about me???? I commented that we had just stepped through the looking glass and definitely joined a bizarre-o world not unlike Jerry and the gang on the Upper West Side.

Well, the other day, the convoluted plotlines of life not only imitated the structure of a Seinfeld episode—but I actually found myself quoting lines from an episode—and not in an homage kind of way.

First of all, we have a day off this week from school (I think the calendar planners thought this week was American Thanksgiving since we have Thursday off from school, but not next Thursday!) so I planned a little get-away. I corralled three friends, and we wanted to go to the Red Sea resort town, a chi-chi place called Sharm El-Sheikh, or to the cool kids, just “Sharm.” Now I have to get the airline tickets, check on visas, and get a hotel.

American travel websites treat the Middle East vacation spots like step-children, so package deals are hard to come by—so I start looking at the trip in pieces to take care of each stage. I secure the airline tickets, and the travel agent suggests a hotel (“Five Stars,” he says, “Very nice—you’re welcome.” I decide to check on-line for reviews of this suggestion, and discover some of the most ghastly reviews imaginable! One comment was just, “Don’t go to this hotel—whatever you do!” Several dozen other reviews ordered similar salvos. I decided I would take care of the hotel myself.

I have learned that finding hotels in Egypt is a tricky thing—everyone here says, “You can’t trust them—they give everything 5 stars. It means nothing! Be very, very careful. Service can be terrible…” and the diatribe continues. So I go to expedia, and I know where I want us to stay—right in the middle of this beach on this bay. I find a hotel with the word “dreams” in the middle of it…ahhh…perfect. As I try and book the hotel on-line I am trying to get two rooms—Nancy wants a single, but Tristan and Tessa and I will share a suite together. The on-line Big Brother won’t allow me to do a 1 and 3 rooming, so I opt to call the telephone support line. I get a lovely voice on the line, “Hello, this is Carmen. I would like to be your friend and be of service. What is your name?” I tell my new best friend Carmen my name, and give her all my information. She makes the reservation—I just need to check with the other three since it is slightly more expensive than our agreement—and Carmen gives me record locators and all that to complete the reservation.

I check with the fellow travelers—yes, all are agreed about the “Dreams” resort. I call back, and of course, no one has heard of Carmen. Then I give the record locators, and the agent, a new woman named Raya, she says there are no rooms available. I kindly tell her I already have a booking, a reservation made with the lovely Carmen. Raya informs me there are no rooms, and indeed there have not been available rooms for days. I pointedly tell her I have a reservation! The reservation keeps the rooms for me. She says, “Yes, we have the reservation but no rooms.”

And here is when I started quoting from the Seinfeld episode: “The reservation reserves the room. That’s why I made a reservation. That’s what a reservation is for!” Raya replied she knew what reservations were for, and I quoted the script verbatim: “I don’t think you do! Otherwise I would have the rooms! See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.” I couldn’t believe all this 1991 dialogue was pouring out of my mouth!

Raya said she had to speak to her supervisor—just like in the TV show! Raya eventually returned to the line, with the immortal line, just like in the quasi-reality of TV: “I'm sorry, my supervisor says there's nothing we can do.”

Ha! Okay, I went back to the drawing board, found another hotel, and we are staying at the Jaz Belvedere…

But this crazy-twisted-doublespeak continued this week, stretching out this moment. Tessa had a crisis when told she couldn’t enter Egypt without a special visa. She went to the website, and the website certainly made it look like that was poppycock. Tessa had Lubna phone the Egyptian and South African embassies, and they said, yes, she would need a special visa. Tessa got on the line, mentioned the website, and oh, well, I guess if you are going to Sharm, well, I guess, everything is fine.

I am nominated, appointed, dubbed, whatever it is to head a Food Committee since someone felt I had the special skills to speak to the Jordanians about food issues. “John, you will be diplomatic and hold them accountable.” Oh sure—choose the man with about 60 good Arabic words at his disposal!

Then there is a hubbub over a 10th grade history class and some of the readings in class about the rise of Islam. But are the problems real problems or pseudo-problems, and are we teaching theology, or critical thinking skills in history? I meet with people to discuss concerns, and much of the issue is truly over semantics and communication skills and faulty translation in the Arabic to English back to Arabic and back to a form of English. What about what sacred texts say and the divergence of how reality operates? Can we look at prophets and holiness critically, and how do we approach issues of faith along with the frailties of the human condition.

Suddenly, it is not just funny moments and clever quips about “nothing.”

Out of nowhere, I get an invitation from the head of the Mathematics department to have coffee that afternoon at his apartment. My first thought is, Okay, what’s wrong? Have I offended you? The math department? Your family? Your wife? Maybe people actually are disturbed over how a non-Muslim (not me, another American—a very sensible, sensitive young teacher) is presenting the history of the region as a less-chauvinistic view of this part of the world.

No, Yasser just wanted to have coffee. He just wanted to get to know me better.

So, just like how many episodes of Seinfeld end in a coffee shop, the fade-out that afternoon was over some laughter and conversation over coffee.

And the credits rolled…