Log0028 | Ponytail Guy
Los Angeles is burning. Soon we could be too. Another fire had somehow started a few miles from our Southern California home. When I saw the smoke from the 10th floor office window I raced home.
My wife was already there. We rushed through our tiny condo, for once grateful of its size. Passports, visas, legal documents, sketchbooks, sketchbooks, sketchbooks. I bounced between the desk, the bookshelves and under the bed in efforts to collect
them all. We made a pile of stuff by the door and waited for the Evacuation Warning to become an Order.
Our building was frantic. Neighbours were already leaving. Some towed suitcases in each hand, others collected their pets in carriers. My favourite was a man we only knew as 'Ponytail Guy' - our heavyset longhaired neighbour. He was a graduate student at UCSD who, I could only assume, was studying some type of computer science. He looked like the sort of person to code hard and game harder. His long hair was always tied with multiple knots; thirteen to be precise. I figured a new hair tie was added for every dragon slain.
He left the complex with only his computer tower on a dolly and a laptop under his arm. It cracked me up to look at all the possessions I cared about most, then see him with two computers and nothing else.
The Order never came and eventually we were free to return all our prized possessions to their selves. Slowly people began filtering back into the condo complex. When I saw Ponytail Guy come in the gate I went downstairs to chat. Asking him how things went, his response was right on character.
With complete sincerity he said, “When I got the evacuation warning I grabbed my computer and went straight to Grandma’s.”
“And man, she has so many photo albums. As soon as we finished loading them into my car, they lifted the warning.”
He captured a stereotype so well. After we chatted for a little longer he dragged the dolly back up to the third floor. Safe from the day’s fire.