Some of you may already know what that number means. For those of you that don’t, please allow me to get a little nerdy on you before I get to the part that is relevant to my point. Fourteen million six hundred and five is the amount of scenarios that the super hero known as Dr. Strange views before confronting the villain Thanos in the MCU movie Infinity war. This movie was directed by the Russo brothers, Joe and Anthony. The Russos love to explore the what ifs or different timelines in their work.
Another time that the Russo brothers showed these concepts was during their time directing the show Community. In Community the character Abed Nadir is the driving force behind the exploration of the what ifs. One way he does this is his Dreamitorium which appears multiple times throughout the series and the other is in the episode, “Remedial Chaos Theory.” Here is a quick summary of the plot:
Troy and Abed invite the study group to their housewarming party. Once everyone has arrived, they begin playing Yahtzee. The pizza delivery man, Toby, arrives, and someone has to go downstairs to collect the pizza. Everyone agrees to Jeff’s plan to roll a die to determine who has to get the pizza.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedial_Chaos_Theory
The episode then splits into different timelines—as noted by Abed throughout, to his friends’ confusion—with each alternate timeline playing out every possible outcome of the die roll. Every timeline features running gags which end differently depending on which characters are present or absent:
I like this example of exploring what ifs. This episode shows how even something as simple as rolling dice to determine who goes to get the pizza will usher different results for each possible result. Tonight I was reminded again by how many what ifs had to align up for me to start my traveling conquest of traveling the world. Ironically despite currently being an Uber driver, I think my life would be very different if it had become more popular in my area any sooner. Probably not for the reasons you are thinking. See, back in 2012 people in southern Maine (where I lived at the time) barely had even heard of Uber. The reason this is important to my story is because in 2012 there was no good transportation options in Wells, Maine at 10pm unless you had a car or could walk to wherever you were going.
The reason I bring this up is because tonight I got a ride request while I was Ubering. The pickup location was nothing out of the ordinary. What did stick out was the name. I cannot write out the name here for privacy reasons, but trust me when I say that the name that popped up was clearly Turkish. I head to the pickup location where four Turkish girls waited. This was only confirmed when the continued to talk to each other in Turkish. I didn’t stop them because even though I only am fluent in English, I love listening to other languages. After a few minutes, there was a long enough break in the talking for me to chime in and just ask if they were from Turkey to confirm I was hearing correctly. The girls were seemed surprised and yet delighted that I knew where they where from. I then explained that I had lived in Istanbul for a few months and I knew a some words in Turkish, but not many. For the most part, none of us made a huge deal out loud about a random Uber driver in New Hampshire having any experience with Turkey. This situation would definitely not stand out if we were in a major city like New York, but as much as I love New England states, there is not a lot of diversity. Even though I was calm and professional on the outside, on the inside I couldn’t help but think back to 2012.
Why do I keep mentioning 2012? That is the year that launched my actual traveling career. Before 2012 I had always loved the idea of traveling the world, but with the exception of going to China in 2008 all my travel ideas seemed like something in the distant future.
Just like now, it was the first week of August in 2012. I was still trying to find myself after a pretty major breakup. I was mostly focused on work due to a new promotion I received at work. I remember this day very clearly. I was having a terrible day at work. I got into a pretty big fight with one of my superiors over something, that at the time seemed like the biggest deal in the world. Needless to say I was tired and I just wanted to go home and sleep. That’s when I got a text from a friend asking if I wanted to go watch him race that night. This is the first clear what if of this day/story. At first I said no, but as I was driving home, I thought that maybe some time out with friends would cheer me up. Plus my general mood at the time was that I didn’t want to spend time at home because it reminded me of the breakup.
So I met up with one friend to watch our other friend race. We also kind of acted as his pit crew for the night. Once the racing was over I was helping pack up the gear and load the car onto the trailer, i received a text from another friend asking if the three of us at the race wanted to grab a drink when we were finished. The other to guys decided to call it a night. I sat there for a moment debating. This was the second major what if of the day. Since I wasn’t tired anymore and I didn’t want to go home I decided that I would go grab a drink with my other friend.
We met up at the restaurant she worked at in Wells. We weren’t aiming to get wildly drunk, just looking to catch up with each other and enjoy a nice summer night out. That is when, out of the corner of my eyes, I notice this group of four girls walk into the bar. I don’t know why, but they stood out in the sea of people. The girls walked passed our table and out of view to a different part of the bar. My friend and I finished up our drinks and decided to call it a night so that way we were sober enough to drive. I head out to my car, roll down my windows and start fiddling with my radio trying to find a good song. That is when I look in my side-view mirror and see none other than the girls I noticed earlier in the night, walking towards my car. At first I brushed it off as a fluke that they were walking to my car. As I looked around though, I realized they had to be walking to my car because there was no other cars or reason to be walking that direction.
Sure enough they came right up to the side of my car and motioned for my attention. I don’t want to say they started speaking broken English, but maybe unsure English? Anyways I could tell that English wasn’t their first language, but I could still understand what they were saying. First the girls asked if I was going in, “that way” and pointed down the road. I kindly/nervously responded with, “yeah.” Then they asked if I could drive them down the street. That is when time seemed to slow down in my head. This was the third what if of the day. There was a huge part of me that was like, “hell no, these are strangers, they will kill you and steal everything you have on you including your car.” The other part of me was a single dude that had four girls asking for help.
After debating in my head for a few seconds, I decided to help these strangers out. The girls pile into my and I start driving away from the restaurant. There was awkward silent at first. Thankfully I broke through my normal shyness and started talking. I asked where they were from. That’s when they told me they were from Turkey. Admittedly at the time I didn’t know much about Turkey, other than the fact that Turkey was a major U.S. ally during the Cold War. I asked what Turkey was like and what there was to do over there. I don’t remember exactly what they said in response, but I do remember thinking, that sounds fun. The girls were smart and had me drop them off at a gas station near where they were staying instead of showing a stranger exactly where they were living at the time. The girls get out of my car and proceed to walk into the gas station.
As I put my car into reverse to drive away, one of the girls, let’s call her Mary for the sake of privacy, walks back towards my car. Mary ask if I wanted a coffee. This is the forth what if of the day. Instantly I was like, no way I don’t want to stay awake all night, but I didn’t want to be rude so I said yes. Mary kindly goes into the gas station and starts to make me a coffee at the self-server coffee station. While Mary is preparing the coffee for me, she asked for my email address. This is the fifth and final what if of the day. At this point I was just saying yes to everything, because, why not? I gave Mary/the girls my email address, grabbed my coffee and drove off into the night.
I got home, still surprised by how the night played out, when the Samsung notification whistle came out of my phone. I unlock my phone to find a Facebook notification that all four girls had requested to be friends on Facebook. Naturally at this point I accepted all of the request.
I won’t get into all the details, but the summary of the it all goes as such. I spent the rest of that summer hanging out and becoming friends with the girls. I even started to have a crush on Mary, but we just remained friends. This friendship lead to my decision to apply for a program to study abroad in Turkey. I realized I had a lot to learn about that region of the world. I figured if I was going to visit a new place, why not go where I know at least a few people.
A year later I was was accepted into the Capa program in Istanbul and I was off on to a new adventure. After studying abroad in Turkey, I was left with experiences most people dream of and friends around the world, which directly fostered my trips to both Egypt and Mexico. Now I can’t satiate my desire to travel and experience new people and places.
I don’t think any of this would have happened if Uber was available in Wells, Maine at the time. The girls would have most likely just requested a ride on the Uber app like the ones from the other day. Except I wasn’t a driver back then. I was just a random guy, trying to live life one decision at a time with the optimism of a child. If I had said no to any of the question the night I met the girls, I simply wouldn’t have the same outcome. The universe needed me to say yes to everything that day for this timeline to work. There are times that I think I am in the darkest timeline, but then I get small reminders like tonight and realize I am in the best timeline.
