who's who

We pulled in to the gas station next to the office after sending off our group of 17, and their 83 bags, at the train station. The easiest last day of all the trips the company runs in Italy. As usual, the unopened bags of breadsticks and biscuits and iced tea and chardonnay go in a plastic sack to the gas attendant. The Nutella and Kinder chocolates for his lady friend. He fills our tank, we count our tips. And then we plan our resignation and discuss the prospects of working as investment bankers. We drive away, instantly lighter and less connected to our past week. Five minutes later, we pull into the "depot" and are reminded that we are not as individual as we think. For the office, our arrival is a check off the master board. Only one of three that day.

The office is in an industrial park, a walk away from the town ten miles down from Arezzo. In the lot next to the building, the emptied vans await the last leg of their season. The dumpsters are full of rotten apples and melted chocolate and the guides' wayward efforts at glamourizing the dirty floorboards and musty smells of these sag-wagons. Flanking the sides of the working vehicles are the parked lives' of the crew still on the road. The keys of each inside on the bike mechanic's desk, extra clothes and free wine in the trunks. Telephone numbers of the girl they met on the train back in September, written on the back side of the receipt for $1.27 for coffee that they will not be reimbursed for. A parking ticket from Puglia still on the windshield, illegible after the rains two weeks ago.

Soon as we pull in, we unload our van of its life. The broken walking stick, permanently stuck on the slowest lady's size, the wine-stained glasses, the once-used water bottles, the baskets with last trip's peach stains at the bottom. The table cloth we forgot to return to the second hotel, the forks we borrowed from the tennis club. The camera we never used, the used moleskin one lady left in between the seats. The extra route directions and the last lists of travellers' dietary restrictions and personal preferences. They get soaked by the half-emptied Cokes in the garbage can. And just like that, it's over. Everything that makes these people different is gone, and we go inside to add up the money and give back the change. We eat some pistachios, pick out the old mini Mars bars in the kitchen. We drink some wine from someone else's last trip, because it doesn't seem as tainted as ours. And like that, we recycle ourselves back into the mix. To begin again tomorrow.

We find the box with our name on it, and our name on the board, the place we're going and the dates we'll be gone. We begin checking out, as the next guide pulls in. The office says hello, we say good-bye, and with that we're back at the beginning, out on the road to do it all over. In the end, then, the difference between the guests and the guides is not so much, depending on who's looking. A sobering thought, thankfully only noticed at the end.