Knotted Up Down Under
I don’t know how to tie a tie.
To be clear, I’ve managed to tie them before. But if you handed me a necktie right now and asked me to fold a Half Windsor, a Full Windsor, a Half-Full Windsor, a Half-Empty Windsor, or just a pretty little makeshift knot that gets me by for a few hours, I’d fail. Miserably.
As a freelancer, my collection of ties has certainly gathered a layer of dust that would choke a horse. I mean, I think they have — assuming I still have them somewhere.
Even in my previous career, I rarely had to wear ties. That’s one of the many perks of working for a small business that happens to be owned and operated by your dad. He’s actually a stickler for the old school and wears a tie just about anytime he meets with anyone outside the company, whether it be a lawyer, a banker or the local chocolate croissant maker.
But as for me, I generally saved my tie-wearing for business-related travel. I think this is why my brain has perpetually rejected retaining the knowledge of how to tie one on a whim. Or perhaps it’s my love of efficiency, knowing that I could save that brain power and just leave all the knots in my ties, even when I’m not wearing them. Or maybe that’s just laziness in disguise.
It’s sort of like how I don’t know how to wear contacts. I’ve tried to learn how to insert them on several occasions, but after 45 minutes of chaffing the skin around both of my eyes into a painful shade of crimson, the Lens Crafters representative would politely ask me to leave. This only happened three or four times, max — maybe five. Hey, wearing glasses is easier and more efficient anyway, so who needs stupid contacts?
(Lazy.)
Anyway, when I started dating the Doctor, he was aghast at my necktie system and immediately ordered me to untie all of them, citing all the permanent damage I’d caused to them by leaving them knotted. I reluctantly acquiesced, pretending not to notice how wonky they all looked laid out on the bed after I was finished undoing them. I maintain that it added a much needed sense of character to my business attire.
So, before big meetings or trips, I would have the Doctor tie my tie for me. On occasions when he wasn’t around, I’d get my dad to do it. I really do have a reasonable amount of shame when it comes to certain things, but I’m an absolute honey badger when it comes to a necktie.
The Doctor graciously permitted me to wear pre-tied ties on long business trips, so he graciously prepared a selection for my suitcase — each coordinating with a specific shirt, of course. Aside from the mountains of judgment from all my peers, my system was pretty swell.
That is, until my 2012 trip to Brisbane, Australia.
I scheduled meetings there in late November, which happened to be the peak of summer Down Under. As I tend to do, I got really cute with the itinerary, booking a trip from Atlanta to Las Vegas to hang out with a friend and her family for the day, then hopping over to Los Angeles for a connection directly to Brisbane on Virgin Australia.
Eight hours in Vegas on the front end of a long business trip. What in the world could possibly go wrong?
Well, as one would expect, my girl and I packed a whole Vegas weekend into those eight hours — with continuous beverages and a gigantic buffet, topped off by a couple of trips on the New York, New York roller coaster.
I’m not proud of this, but almost five years later, I can say I’ve (mostly) learned my lesson. I remember my friend pouring me into a cab, and the next thing I remember, I was in the Delta Sky Club at LAX. The seasoned traveler I was, I managed to arrive at McCarran airport in Vegas, check my bag all the way to Brisbane, navigate security, board my flight to LAX without incident, endure the 40-minute flight, deplane and find my way to the lounge. I’m half proud and half mortified by this superpower of mine.
Once I came to, I changed terminals at LAX and managed to get myself upgraded to Premium Economy class on the flight to Brisbane. Virgin Australia was just as swanky and hip as the other Virgin brands, but I was surprised to find a self-serve bar within a few feet of my seat.
Needless to say, the frivolity continued for the next 14 hours. Around this “bar” I met several Aussies traveling back home who were eager to enjoy the free Jim Beam (?!) and share stories about getting punched and otherwise beat up by the neighborhood kangaroos. Apparently they’re vicious little bastards, and they don’t take no for an answer. Koalas, too, are apparently oversized rats, and they ruin everything. I’m still holding out for a second opinion about them.
I got a few hours of shuteye and landed early in the morning two days later (local time) in Queensland. I felt surprisingly fresh and awake, considering my reckless behavior, and made my way off the plane and through immigration with no issues.
Customs, however, was a nightmare. Flights from just about every country imaginable had all landed at the same time, so meandering through all the families and carts and roller bags was an adventure, to put it kindly.
I waited by my flight’s bag carousel for about an hour, and when it stopped turning, it quickly sank in that I had no bag. The guilt and self-loathing that swept over me was paralyzing, knowing that my Vegas-related negligence had royally screwed me over. Never. Drinking. Again.
Turns out, though, that it wasn’t my fault. Apparently there was a mix-up in Vegas, and my bag missed the flight. How my drunk ass made it and my sober suitcase didn’t, I couldn’t understand. Thanks to modern technology, my bag was tracked in Los Angeles, and it would be on the next day’s flight down to Brisbane. In classic airline blame-shifting, Virgin apologized on behalf of Delta, offering no consolation but promising to deliver the bag to my hotel the next day.
Unfortunately, I had a meeting the next morning with some high-ranking state legislators, so I had to exercise some damage control. I met our representative at my hotel for late-afternoon coffee, and he suggested that I walk over to the Target and buy some “nice” clothes for the meeting. I laughed at first, but begrudgingly did as he said. Thanks to the assistance of a lovely, flamboyant fashionista working in the men’s department, I forked over about $300 US for a shirt, slacks and shoes. That’s hard to do at Target in the states, but I apparently got a CRAZY good deal in Australia.
The next morning, my colleague met me at the hotel and handed me what looked like a gift — a necktie. I thanked him, and told him it was beautiful, despite the fact that it had threads hanging out of the seams and was reminiscent of the color of baby vomit. “Oh no, that’s just for you to borrow,” he said. “Now chop chop, put it on; time for us to get going.”
Ohhhhhh shit, said my brain. But my mouth said, “Great! I’ll just head to the WC and freshen up.”
I closed the door behind me and immediately broke out into a sweat. What was I to do? I just met this gentleman, and we’re about to attend a series of highly important, professional meetings. And now I’m supposed to ask him to tie my necktie?
There had to be another way. So I whipped out my phone and opened the YouTube app. The service in the bathroom was atrocious, so the first “how to tie a tie” video I pulled up would stream in three-second intervals, before pausing for about 10 seconds, and then repeating this cycle. I also had to keep the sound practically muted so that he couldn’t hear me watching a video in the bathroom — which would arguably be more embarrassing than just asking the old codger to tie it for me.
The first video, of course, was a bust. After the dude got about halfway through tying the knot, his cat jumped into to the frame, and so he had to dance with his cat for a few minutes before finishing the knot. I angrily pounded the phone screen with my index finger and opened the next video. Cue a 45-second advertisement…
About ten minutes had passed, and I was drenched in sweat. The old necktie smelled like mothballs and was falling apart, as I pulled and tugged on it to try to create some semblance of a knot.
My colleague called out from the other side of the door. “Everything all right in there, mate?”
“Oh yes, just fine!” Everything was just fine.
I continuously wiped my brow, as my anxious perspiration started to puddle down the back of my $100 Target shirt. What a disaster.
About five more minutes later, I had strangled myself to the point that I was a pale blue, but I had invented a brand new knot that no man had ever seen before. It looked tidy enough, so I wiped myself down again and opened the door.
My colleague looked at me with growing concern, because I looked like I had been trapped in the trunk of a car for a few days and had just emerged. He pretended like he didn’t suspect anything and gently tugged at my knot, seemingly to “straighten” it up. When he saw what a lost cause it was, he patted me on my wet shoulder, and away we went.
The meeting went surprisingly well, and later that afternoon when I returned to the hotel, my suitcase was there waiting for me. All my clothes were intact, including the four neckties that the Doctor had tied for me. I’ll let you guess how many I wore the rest of the trip. Hint: you can’t divide by this number.
Overall, the trip was enjoyable, but no business really resulted from it — like almost all my business trips, it seems. But a lesson was certainly ingrained in me from that experience, and I made a point to remember it forever…
No, no, no. I didn’t learn how to tie a tie. That would be ridiculous.
I learned that with absolutely no exceptions, never, ever check a bag.
