I'm going to kick this story off from the Tom Bradley international terminal at LAX where I was lounging on a comfortable although highly spatially inefficient couch, the type one finds only in airport terminals that have seen little traffic. If you're having trouble picturing it, don't worry, I was having trouble too. Having trouble figuring out why such a comfortable couch was only available when I had little to no use for it. I'd spent the previous night curled in a corner of the American Airlines terminal (that's terminal number seventy seven) with my bag as my pillow and my white silk sleeping sack as my protective cocoon from people that might have otherwise tried to talk to me.
I’d spent the night in this very specific terminal because I read on some travel blog somewhere that it was one of the best terminals at LAX for sleeping in. The author had clearly never experienced the wonders of Tom Bradley.
Even if you’ve never slept curled in a corner in a white silk sleeping sack with a bag as your pillow, you probably understand that spatially inefficient couches are much more desirable as beds than corners of terminals numbered seventy seven.
So there I was, peacefully stretching out my legs on this remarkable couch in the Tom Bradley international terminal which, by this point, I was affectionately referring to in my head as the Tom Brady international terminal, when the thought crossed my mind that I’d really, really like some chocolate.
Less than 5 minutes later, I kid you not, a middle-aged lady sits down next to me, pulls out a bar of dove silky smooth dark (this is the best kind there is, in case you didn’t know!), turns to me and says, “you want a piece of chocolate?” I suppose my internal response must have been something along the lines of “Jesus is risen and Jesus is a female” but what I said out loud was “duh.”
We made friends pretty fast, and not just because she gave me half her chocolate bar. She was a member of the Baha’i faith and wanted to tell me all about it. I was much more inclined to listen to her because she’d just performed a chocolate miracle through some sort of connection with my innermost desires, so I figured she might have something good to say. I’m not so sure how I feel about the Baha’i faith, but they do build some pretty cool temples and what she mostly wanted to tell me was that their temples are rad and that I should travel to them whether or not I agree with her that Baha’i is the one and only true religion.
I suppose some other reasons that I liked her were that she was traveling alone and she was a scattered, chocolate loving female. She kept telling me how great it was to travel alone, that there was no other way to travel, and I maintained a constant inner dialogue throughout our conversation of “you go sister,” and “get it girl!” But really, she must have sensed my enthusiasm, because you know what she did? She gave me money! Or she tried to at least. Here's what happened.
She says, “you know, I went to Israel last year, and I have this bag of shekels that I didn’t exchange back to American. You’re going to be traveling a lot, you should take them. Maybe they’re worth a lot, I’m not sure.”
I thought this was a really strange offer. I asked her how much they were worth in American and she answered vaguely “Oh, I don't know, anywhere from twenty to fifty dollars, I don't know.” I told her there was no way I could take them, that was too much money, I wouldn’t take them. She responded by telling me they’d been sitting around her house for a year and she’d never get around to exchanging them, they were just a bother, she really wanted me to take them.
She pulls the shekels out of her bag, and these things look like they were made in the land of Jesus in the time of Jesus. Even the bag she’s put the shekels in is woven from silver fabric, complete with tassels and a drawstring. I eventually accepted, twenty to fifty dollars is a lot of money to pass up and everything was feeling very religious by this point.
We wrapped up our conversation as boarding began, but she gave me her email so that I could write her and let her know what I ended up doing with the shekels and how much they were worth. She cheerily let me know that she hopes she gave me a lot of money “I hope they’re worth a lot. I hope you get fifty dollars.” She even told me to contact her next time I’m in LA, so she can show me her house and take me to a Baha’i meeting. “Rainn Wilson comes to these meetings you know. He’s Baha'i. He’s a good friend of mine.” This is actually a really appealing offer. Rainn Wilson plays Dwight Shrute from the office, for those of you who don’t know. And if you aren't familiar with the office, we’re not operating on the same brainwaves anyway, and there's no way you’re reading this. Point being, Rainn Wilson is great. I would love to meet him. I asked her if, on the off chance I never get to see her house and go to a Baha'i meeting with her, she’d mind letting Rainn Wilson know that there's a girl named Maria who lives in Oregon who thinks he’s really, really funny.
We can all operate under the assumption that I will never see her house in LA, that I will never go to a meeting of the Baha’i faith, but that Rainn Wilson most likely knows I exist.
So what ever happened to the shekels?
I got to Europe safe and happy. I spent my first European hours dashing around Rome trying to learn some Italian and find cathedrals with my name in them. I also visited 3 different currency exchanges. All of them had the same response: “we don't take coins, only paper.” At this point I figured I just really needed to meet somebody who was going to Israel. When I was on Crete I met a friend of a friend who miiiight be going to to Israel. I told her the story and gave her the coins. I met up with her two months later back in Eugene, she decided not to go to Israel but she gave them to somebody she met who WAS going to Israel. I’m going to assume that the coins have been put to good use in the holy land, that hopefully this unknown friend of a friend has purchased lots of delicious food and visited lots of holy places with the money sent to her indirectly through a nice Angelian Baha'i chocolate miracle practitioner. Otherwise, the coins are still swirling around in a sea of travelers navigating airport currency exchange kiosks, duty free shopping malls, and oddly religious chocolate induced conversations.
I counted the coins, by the way. There were 120 shekels. This is $30 at the current exchange rate. It's enough to buy a nice dinner date for two, or an interesting conversation and a new friend in any airport near you.
Turns out, I didn't personally get twenty to fifty dollars. What I did get was half a bar of chocolate, a good story, and a distant connection with Rainn Wilson. These things are much harder to come by than 30 dollars US.
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