The Million Count Run

I am back on the road after an all too brief respite home.  It’s my last business trip for a couple of months (I hope) and one of my favorite.  First, because it’s the last for a few months and second, I get very close to my absolute favorite fabulous city in the entire world, New York City.

I never get into Manhattan on this trip even though it’s embarrassingly close to the New Jersey suburb that I effort the press check in.   A press check is the last look prior to printing a piece of collateral.  In this case, my beloved annual report, a project I sweat bullets over every year and actually dream about until it goes to the printers.

It takes nerves of steel to sign off on a document like this.  Once you do, they push the button and the presses roll.  There is no, “Stop the presses” in the real world.  One time I was doing my press check and the entire (giant) building of people went quiet.  Somebody was about to sign off on a million, yes, million, count run of some document or other.  It was a moment of respect and quiet awe.  Entire careers are risked with far less than a million count run.

My runs (i.e., quantities) are not nearly that expansive.  They run in the thousands, not millions but I take my job with deadly seriousness nonetheless, working each year with a print master named Vinnie who, yes, comes from the Bronx.  We swap pics of kids, talk about his family and he tells me great stories as his masterful eye tweaks color a nearly indiscernible shade here and there.  I was never so grateful to see someone after I was given the go-ahead to travel again.  Vinnie was my first official business trip after chemo and radiation.  It was like going home but better.  My hair was impossibly short but Vinnie treated me like family come home again, entirely normal. 

I think I love Vinnie sometimes, seeing him makes me feel so safe and that life goes on, like the giant print presses that whirl on around us. 

I only spend a day with Vinnie then some nice person from the printing firm drops me off at the airport and I fly to my boyfriend’s house for a few days.  I am not in Manhattan but I am reluctant to leave the east coast nonetheless. Its part of my routine and I crave it, particularly after beating cancer.

This year I at least remembered to bring lollypops for Vinnie’s  beloved little girl and to wear something very east cost chic.  Golden lace dress, surprisingly business appropriate when paired with a black faux leather jacket and high heeled pumps.  I feel compelled to let my east coast sisters know that we Callie girls can doll it up with the best of them.

And who knows, now that I’m nearly three years into my recovery, maybe someday I’ll be the one with the million count run and the hush that falls over the enormous print facility when I sign off.