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#38: Be a Daniel
Shem Opolot
September 22, 2023
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Happy Friday 🎉 I was wondering how long it would take me to get properly lost in D.C., and well, it finally happened. At 8.15 pm EST on Tuesday, after class, I galloped over 40 minutes away from where I was staying. For free food. And in the process, I got on the wrong bus. Twice.
It’s true what my wife says: “Cheap things will cost you.”
But the pizza was delicious, though (more on this later).
Estimated read time: 6 minutes
AD: Making greeting cards sexy again.
Where were these guys when I was sending success cards to my crushes in secondary school?
💡 A short story
Be a Daniel.
Gif by Kennymays on Giphy
What’s the best pickup line you’ve ever used?
Mine was to say, “If my face is the map of Africa, Uganda is right here,” and wink my left eye. I’d use it when a cute American girl asked me where Uganda was. Worked every time.
My friend from Tennessee used to ask the ladies if they were from Tennessee, and when the ladies squeezed their faces in confusion, he’d respond, “Because you’re the only Ten... I see.” We can’t all be perfect.
But speaking of Tennessee…
Today, I all but figured out where I’ll be living in D.C. Cross your fingers for me.
It’s a lovely, quaint neighborhood you might have seen on the many political TV shows you watch (think Madam Secretary, Scandal, etc.). Thin streets, tall trees punctuating the pavements, and a centipede of townhouses—some red brick, some not—hiding poorly behind the trees. The uniformity is so flush that a newbie like me must read the door numbers for at least 3 weeks straight before memorizing my apartment’s location. As a black man, it’s important not to lurk around the wrong neighborhoods, let alone the wrong doors.
But how did I manage to score a bed in this picturesque neighborhood while keeping my vital organs intact?
Well, the year was 2014, Pharrel’s “Happy” wasn’t annoying yet, and by this time in my life, I had already flown in a private jet, ridden shotgun in a Porsche, and lived in a 15,000-square-foot mansion by myself—a story for another day.
I took the hardest standardized exam any human can take—the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT)—and was taking interviews, but as an international student, my options were limited.
Eventually, I got my first interview…in Tennessee.
I didn’t have the money to fly to Tennessee, nor did I know anyone there, so, with plenty of time to spare, I called up some of my fraternity brothers in Florida for help.
The ones you expect to help you don’t, and the ones you least expect to help you offer help.
Daniel, one of the young guys in the fraternity under my tutelage when I was the fraternity educator, was a young, skinny, athletic, and brilliant white lad with thin hair. I’m surprised he’s not bald yet, but I might be projecting.
Daniel wasn’t very self-aware but was aware enough to know he wasn’t self-aware. He also knew he was smarter than most people, and sometimes his rehearsed humility failed him. Daniel, with whom I’d barely exchanged 10 coherent sentences over 2 years in college, offered to host me in his off-campus apartment in Florida and then drive me to Tennessee for my interview.
For the next week or two, I slept on Daniel’s couch, watched Smallville reruns with him, and listened to his mushroom cloud of girl problems and poor choices. He should’ve picked the blonde, but he picked the brunette every time because he had a type.
When school was out, we loaded up Daniel’s strong but tired, faded black Jeep, typed his home address in the car’s GPS, and sped off. It was roughly 10 hours between Lakeland, Florida, and Tennessee, but we stopped in Atlanta to recuperate and eat some of the best food I’ve had in my life before continuing to Tennessee.
When you mush together the hours we spent bonding over Clark breaking Lana’s heart for the thousandth time in Smallville and 10 hours of in-car time together, Daniel and I became good friends.
In Atlanta, we stayed with Daniel’s parents—the sweetest couple. Both of them were physicians (Grey’s Anatomy might be right about the way doctors fraternize), which explained Daniel’s wits and his wallet.
Daniel gave me the best scenic tour of a city anyone has ever given me and showed me just enough to fall in love with Atlanta: the Coca-Cola factory where the original recipe is kept behind a vault (allegedly), Stone Mountain, the best burger I’ve had in my life from The Vortex, etc.
After the weekend, we peeled ourselves away from his parents’ smothering love and drove straight to Tennessee. We arrived the morning of my interview, and the roads were covered in a thin snow blanket like white icing on a gray cake. And when I cracked the window open, the cold wind whistled in, so I said, “Hell no!” and rolled the window back up. I was already dressed in the car, so Daniel parked, I toured the school, crushed the interview, got accepted a few weeks later, and never returned.
Even though time passed and we lost touch as I went to find myself and Daniel went to find more brunettes, we always had our bond and that autumn drive in 2014.
Nine years later, when I needed a place to stay in D.C., I rummaged through my phone book. The ones you expect to help you don’t, and the ones you least expect to help you offer help.
Daniel responded immediately, reached out to a few contacts in D.C.,… and I visited the apartment today.
May God give you a Daniel. Or better yet, be a Daniel.
🔌 Shameless plug
My mum reads TLDR Weekly now, so... who the hell do you think you are?
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🎁 My favorite things
A quote
Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.
A picture
There’s a cool app here called Too Good to Go. If a bakery makes 30 donuts and only manages to sell 20 on the day, they’d have to throw the 10 out because they wouldn’t be “fresh” anymore. Instead, they put the donuts on Too Good to Go, and Shem gets them at a discount. I got four delicious slices of pizza for $0 on a Tuesday evening when I had zero dinner prospects. As I enjoyed my pizza, I laughed at the fact that this would never work in Uganda.
The slices were much bigger than they appear here
🚀 Pro tip
A better way to search than Google? Yep.
You could search for something on Google and get a thousand links to random blogs and websites, or you could use this tool and get what you’re looking for much faster.
And if you’re doing research, you can create collections of all your searches, so you don’t have to open a thousand tabs.
🧩 Where fun goes to flourish
The Friday Fix playlist
Brain teaser
From Braingle.
I alone am an intricate game
I and a labyrinth are one and the same
Add a letter and then I become
Astonished, amused, and perplexed to some
What am I?
Answer below
Shem’s picks
👩🏾💻 Travel the world from your desk
📚 Read classic novels in newsletter style
Brain teaser answer
Answer:
A "maze" and a labyrinth are one and the same
Because we both are puzzling games
Add an "A" and you will see
"Amaze" is what I become to be
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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