Travel Games

I was flying from Texas to California yesterday, and as luck would have it I saw someone I knew in the airport. This happens to me more often than you would think it might, it happened just this past December, as a matter of fact. It's only really freaky when it happens in a foreign country, where you would have no right to expect to meet someone from, say, your high school.
   Anyway, I saw a lady I knew when I worked at Countrywide. She had A23 boarding number, I had A22. Which was eerily similar to the events of December, when the friend I met by chance in DFW not only was on the same plane as I was, but had the seat right next to me. The lady from Countrywide worked in HR like I did, her office was on the other side of the big room from mine. Come to find out, she's from San Antonio too, I never knew this before. I ran into her at McCarran airport - that's Vegas for you non-travel savvy folks - but she'd been on my same flight from San Antonio. Weird.
   We got to talking and I realized there's a game people play when you meet someone you don't really know all that well, but you feel obligated to make conversation because you recognize them from work. You talk about people you both know and where they are now. Mark? Don't know, still looking I imagine. Jeff? Started a business. Other Jeff? Working a consulting gig. Nathan? Working his family's pharmacy. Eve? Working for Scott - remember him? - but recently laid off and looking for work too.
   Big pause.
   What do you say when you realize you've run out of meaningless pleasantries? When you've exhausted the list of people you both might know but you still feel obligated to keep the conversational ball rolling? You talk about your shared hometown. Did you know they have music at Wonderland Mall, which hasn't been Wonderland for years but neither of us could remember it was called Crossroads Mall until much later in the conversation. You talk about what high schools you went to, and where my father went but didn't graduate from, and things that didn't used to be there and where farms once dotted a landscape now filled with ugly McMansions.
   Big pause.
   Then the boarding announcement sounded and we shuffled on board for our 3 ounce plastic cup of soda and two packets of peanuts.
   It was an awkward dance, though pleasant enough. I found out she lives in South Pasadena, as do Other Jeff and Sandra. Never knew that before either. Small world.