Two IRS Employees and a Downtown Pickup, Skyscrapers Overhead, Froot Loops Underfoot

 Two IRS Employees and a Downtown Pickup, Skyscrapers Overhead, Froot Loops Underfoot

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I picked them up downtown—two IRS tax employees in suits, both carrying satchels and luggage that made them look like they were already inside a very structured kind of day. I pulled over near a safe spot by a busy intersection, tall buildings around us, skyscrapers. 

The guy immediately introduced himself, like he was setting the tone, maybe trying to get a sense of who I was and whether I was capable of getting him through downtown.

He told me he was in a slew of meetings (a slew of meetings), and I clocked that phrase right away.

My car had Froot Loops on the floor, which I noticed a second too late. That detail just sat there quietly in my mind while they got in.

They were very composed. Unfazed. That’s the word. Like nothing about traffic, detours, or timing was really going to touch them emotionally, they were just adjusting variables in a system.

I took the “slew of meetings” as a sign he might want to talk, like we were about to have some kind of driver-passenger conversation to pass the time.

But then I realized he wasn’t really talking to me.

He was on the phone with someone else.

On the ride, one of them was on a high-intensity phone call about real estate. It kept circling this pressure point, whether to move forward on a deal or switch to another lawyer who would cost them a $300 conversation just to keep things moving.

At some point, I told them I did improv comedy.

I asked if they liked comedy, like I was trying to justify the pivot in real time. I think they said yes, or at least enough to keep the conversation from dying immediately, and I leaned into it, talking about improv, how it helps me think on my feet, read situations, not freeze up.

They asked where I perform, and I could tell they were halfway curious, halfway just being polite, but I kept going anyway.

And then I made a joke about my own IRS situation, something about how I had recently dealt with it through University of Minnesota tax lawyers. And even as I said it, I had that split-second internal pause like, why did I just say that, especially to IRS employees sitting directly behind me.

It was one of those moments where your mouth is already ahead of your judgment.

We got onto I-94 West, and then there was a detour. I hesitated. I couldn’t immediately find my way back onto the interstate, and suddenly I was the one unsure.

And somehow, they weren’t.

They stayed calm the entire time. Unfazed again. Just adjusting to the delay, measuring everything in minutes rather than emotion.

And then they were the ones guiding me back, this strange reversal where two out-of-state passengers were helping me navigate a city I was supposed to be driving them through.

Two IRS employees in suits, me talking about improv and laughing a little too fast at my own thoughts, all of us trying to get somewhere different but sharing the same moving box of time for twenty minutes.

And underneath all of it, I realized this is what I do, I talk my way through uncertainty. I reach for comedy when I’m not sure how I’m landing. Even when it’s messy or slightly awkward, it’s how I stay in motion