(No, Not the Creepy Kind)
“Well, I’m just people watching
The other people watching me
We’re all people watching
The other people watching we”Jack Johnson song from Curious George movie, 2006 Listen here
Travel forces you to consider why you do things the way you do. Suddenly, you realize that not everyone does life the same way as you. Not every pair of shoes is left on the front step, and not every cheek gets kissed in greeting, and not every hork onto the curb is considered rude. And it’s okay.
Travel opens your mind to mind-boggling scenery and creatures. And it’s okay.
But the best part for me? The people. The people who selflessly shoo you the right direction to baggage claim. The ones who help you flag down police when your tire is flat or your wallet has been heisted. The smiles that dispel fear. Fellow fliers who spend hours next to you, sharing their stories. You can’t help but see grace and goodness everywhere.
And another part of the fun that involves humans? Watching them, of course. People are fascinating creatures. It’s no wonder we stare. No, not in a creepy I’ve-got-binoculars-and-I-can-see-the-colour-of-your-socks kind of way.
Do you ever gaze at a passerby and ask yourself:
- How do they earn a paycheque?
- Do they loathe or love their cute, upturned pixie nose?
- What was the last thing they texted their brother?
- What would their dentist find lodged between their molars?
- Did their mother ever sew them a see-through white swimsuit at exactly the wrong age of puberty? [Wait, how did that escape the memory vault and end up here?]
In her Huffington Post article called People Watching: Harmless or Perverted?, Candace Davis mentions how the “hobby” of people-watching has been turned into games such as “’teenage mum or sister?’, ‘Mormon or non-Mormon?’, and ‘spot the drug deal’”.
Game or no game, “it’s important to understand that the goal of people-watching is to observe those around you, rather than judging others,” Emily Chan in Baron News. (Okay, okay, lecture over. I know you’re better than that.)
Observing other earthling comrades is a fun and sometimes kooky part of travel.
People-Watching in Cuba
We didn’t set an alarm for the morning of January 1, 2025. And yet, free of charge, we were gifted with one at 6:30 am.
We hadn’t gone to bed late. But the New Year’s noise of Texans puking between wild hibiscus bushes and the dance music that had sped up our need for hearing aids by about two decades meant we hadn’t had exactly the kind of sleep we wrinklies long for. The sun hadn’t yet had its first sip of java. It felt too early for repeated knocks on every door in the hallway, including our own.
“Fire alarm?” I questioned, hearing several voices shouting at one another. “Should we grab our passports and make a run for it!?”
“Nah. Just leftovers from New Year’s Eve,” responded Mark, rolling his face back into the pillow.
The yells continued until someone in a room down the hall opened a door and politely said in English, Let me help you. Followed by some sort of scuffle.
“It sounds like pure rage. Who are they? What’s going on?” The snores didn’t answer me.
Later, at the coffee bar, the waitress ignored our needing-coffee jitters as she and several other coworkers chatted, laughed, and made many motions, including the international sign for puking. Eventually, she took our order and, between pouring espresso and adding foam, she kept pointing back towards the pool at a guy almost as skinny as the champagne glass he was pouring into his face.
Three coffees and a walk around the resort later, we would sit and spend a long-time observing reality-TV-without-the-TV —and our inner sleuths would kick in.
We were chapters-deep into books, but the tableau vivant across the pool before us proved so much more interesting.
The thin dude, whom we will call Ebrio (look that one up wink wink), scratched at his deeply tanned, sleeveless arms and stumbled towards a chaise lounge that was barely bigger than him. Grabbing it, Ebrio spent many minutes attempting to yank it open. When he was eventually successful, Mark and I both let out quiet celebratory cheers, as though our child had just aced a Mensa challenge. But with more than a touch of sarcasm.
Ebrio stretched out the chair and then literally fell face-first into it. We could almost hear the snores from across the pool.
Meanwhile, his workmates began disassembling the stage lighting and sound system. A guy who looked about 45, with a ponytail hanging out of his cap and Adidas pants desperately clinging for life to his ass crack, shouted orders between chugs of beer. His underling, who obviously accessory shopped where Elton John would have had he been Cuban, managed to keep a sequined top hat and sunglasses on as he scurried barefoot up the vertical boom and unhitched cables and lights.
“Hope he has a good hold on that one,” Mark commented as we watched Elton Jr. crawl back down the wobbly scaffolding. “That’s a $15,000 light.”
Every ten minutes or so, the two would slink into any shaded area available on the stage and bookend half a cerveza with two cigarettes. Ebrio continued sleeping.
I watched and I wondered:
- Did these dudes’ heads hit the pillow at any point the night before?
- How close to needing-a-hospital-because-the-booze-is-devouring-my-stomach-lining are these guys?
- What do their spouses look like?
- Are those sparkly sunglasses, in the shape of 2025, made in China?
“Wait. Listen to those guys,” remarked Mark, “Recognize their voices?”
Elton Jr. woke Ebrio with an aggressive shove that nearly nosedived him onto the concrete, and the two of them jumped fully dressed into the pool. They yelled back and forth. The tone and cadence of their shouts did indeed sound familiar. Suddenly, the early morning mystery was solved.
These workers, whose bodies were filtering more alcohol than blood, had been our early morning wake-up call.
You never know what you’ll see when you watch.
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