Serendipity?

Ok the craziest thing happened to me the other day. Alright, it's not that crazy but it's pretty fucking serendipitous if you ask me.

So I'm on my way to work and I'm wearing my jewel neck dress which might be considered our sexiest uniform piece. Not that you could really call any of our uniforms sexy, but if you could this might be the it. Although the coat dress does show more cleavage. It's a toss up. Anyway, I'm walking, no maybe slowly shimmying, up the stairs of the Western Blue Line stop and I hear someone say "Oh, you work for -----Airlines?" And I can't see anyone so I'm like who the eff is talking to me? But then I look down and a pilot wearing his entire uniform minus his shirt is coming up behind me. Ok, he was wearing an undershirt, but still. So I reply "Yeah, who do you work for?" And thus we spend about ten minutes chatting on the platform whilst waiting for the train and I'm liking it. He's adorable and easy to talk to and I want to keep talking but then the train comes and I act like a total weirdo.

I get on first and I'm not sure if we are bringing the convo with us or going our separate ways. I panic about where to sit. Do I assume we sit together or just take the first open seat? I went with the latter and clearly worse choice and sat next to some old man. Pilot guy continues on to the cluster of empty seats further down. So then I move. But not over by the pilot, over to an empty row with my back to him. So. Ridiculous. I'm thinking to myself 'It's ok. You will redeem yourself upon exiting the train when you will turn to him and ask him where the known crew member entrance is in terminal 3 (the one his airline operates from) because you are going there to get a salad from Burrito Beach (I honestly was doing that anyway) and you will walk there together and he will ask you to dinner.' I'm pleased with this idea. However upon exiting the train and turning, he is lost behind a sea of people much faster than him apparently and then I feel awkward all over again. Thus my new plan hatches. In this plan, well I walk real slow and we end up at the known crewmember entrance at the same time. What I didn't realize was that entrance is in BFE and all the T3 people just go through plain old security which is closer. And that's where I see him again. Going through security. But I panic again, thinking he will think I'm stalking him because wtf am I doing in T3?? So I walk on and I kick myself because I realize the only thing I know about this guy is what airline he works for and that he is flying to BWI and back. I don't even know his name. Of course I look at the board and see his flight leaves out of G19, no mans land basically, and I order my Burrito Beach salad and who gets in line behind me? No. Not him. This other pilot I can't stand because 5 yrs ago on an overnight in Lexington, after a night of drinking, me and my 2 pilots were eating McDonald's in the Captain's room. I was given the task of picking some music from an iPod, when I looked up again the FO had mysteriously disappeared and this guy, the captain, pounced on top of me on the bed and I was like "Uh, no. Not happening." And then basically had to talk him out of hooking up with me. He's a creep. So that was who I had to small talk with in line at the burrito place. Ugh.

I was scheduled to do a PIT turn with my flight attendant buddy Brian who was in my initial new hire class. I go down to the crew room, moping about my missed opportunity with cute captain guy, when the captain of my PIT turn tells me our flight was cancelled! I immediately call Brian to tell him the good news and find out where he was. He was near the gate. I told him I'm coming up to get him. I find him on a bench and I'm all "Get up! I need you to walk and talk with me and tell me if what I'm about to maybe do is totally crazy." He hops up, I fill him in and am like "His flight leaves in ten min from G19 should I go there and leave my number with the gate agent?" And Brian says "Sure, why not." So we head there. But halfway down G I realize I cannot do this. This is not the kind of thing I do. I'm way too shy. I can't. So we start to turn around and then Brian stops to check the board and what do we see?? BWI Cancelled! At which point I'm like let's get the fuck out of here before he sees my crazy ass.

We head back to our own turf in T2 and wait for the company to give us the OK to go home which takes at least 20 min and I'm entertaining the thought that there is of course a chance that my pilot might be on the same train. Even though they leave every 7-10 min and he could already be long gone, there was a chance! Brian and I ride the train and I was half considering filling out a "missed connections" on the Chicago Red Eye app. Yes, there is a place where if you saw someone you liked on Chicago public transport, you can specify if it was on a train or bus and what line, what stop etc and then be like "You were wearing a pilots uniform, minus the shirt. I was climbing the stairs...want to make little airline babies?" Or whatever. Anyway when I get off at my stop I scan the platform and its a negative. I walk down to the sidewalk, am contemplating waiting for the bus vs. walking and am making a call when I hear another train pull up. I decide to wait just for kicks then walk. And who walks out the doors...? Yep. The guy.

So I watch him walk down the sidewalk for a sec, I have my phone to my ear and then I just start waving and run across the street. He looks taken aback. He says "Hey! Did your flight cancel??" I'm like "Yeah! Did yours?" As if I didn't know. He's like "This is so weird, we left for work together and now we are finishing together. It's like it was meant to happen!" And I'm like "I know :)" So we walk and are just chatting away, and we find out we literally live a block away from each other. And again he's like "This is crazy." Then he's like "We'll let me get your phone number..." And I'm like "Yeah :)" and he's like " So I'll talk to those girls and let you know about the apt." And I'm thinking "Oh." Then he adds, "and we can hang out sometime." Thank God. So he was stopping off to get a haircut and we start talking about haircuts and I'm going on about how my hair is so thick it's hard to find people who can cut it and he asks if he can feel my hair. I of course allow this, and he takes a big handful of it in his hands. And then we cross the street and I drop him off at the hair salon and go on my way.