“I’m like the Vanna White of Australia,” she explained. I was in Hong Kong on a courier trip. They don’t exist anymore, but this was 1988. Then, pre-Internet, when time-sensitive business documents had to be delivered quickly, courier companies sent a human being with them. That way, the docs cleared customs as personal baggage. In 1988, I was slogging through a 3-year emergency medicine residency training program. At the midpoint and absolute nadir of the hellish experience, I was miserable, too far into it to recall the joy I’d felt while earning my M.D. and not far enough through it to be able to see its end. Still, I was in Hong Kong on vacation, having discharged my duties to the courier company and now free to do as I liked for 10 days. But that fact brought me no joy. I marched about Hong Kong Island on trip-day #1, dejectedly ruminating on my many woes. Then I saw her, the Australian Vanna, from a distance, a flash of blond, blond hair and the side of a beautifully flushed face. Funny how you behave sometimes when roaming solo. You let the world in and it does the same for you. As I hurried forward and neared the stunning blond I’d spied at a distance, I realized something inescapable. She was completely out of my league. But the sea of short, dark-haired Hong Kong citizens continued to part and then suddenly I was beside the woman who had appeared like a mirage. Fully expecting to be shut down I ventured, “Hi, what are you doing in Hong Kong?” “I’m here on a modeling assignment,” she replied. And just like that, it was on. She continued, “I’m like the Vanna White of Australia. My real name is Brittney though. Someone saw me on my little game show back home and called my agent. They said I’d be perfect to promote some product they’ve got. They flew me here for a photo shoot. They’re paying for everything!” You should see my apartment in the city,” she went on. Yes, I’d definitely like that, I thought. Talk about a chance travel meet that was going great! Brittney plunged back in, “It is 40 floors above the city, three bedrooms, with views to die for. Where are you staying?” “The Y,” I replied. And on she went, “Oh, move in. You’ll have your own room. Plus, I know a bunch of people here. Some are suits but they’re from all over the world. The rest are just a trip. We should hang out. You’ll dig it.” “Remind me to introduce you to my sea captain friend tonight.” She tossed this treat out offhandedly then stood to go. We made our way to the Y, claimed my backpack and headed off to her place. I remember none of the details of the crazy little bar we hit that night. But Brittney’s friends were as billed … trippy. Businessmen, “the suits” from all over, deep into their stocks and bonds and high-rise projects and who knows what else. A smattering of models, musicians all moving to their own beat and in their own worlds, fellow travelers and others, all out for a good time in one of the planet’s great cities. Then, late in the evening after the crowd had thinned … the captain. Brittney took me over to meet him, and him I do remember. Seated alone at a big round dark wood table, nursing a beer, chunky, with a shock of white hair framing a sun-reddened face. A striped black and white shirt and a blue woolen sailor’s cap completed his image. “What do you do? He asked. Maybe it was the beer I’d had, but out it came. The doctor-in-training bit, the misery, the uncertainty about my chosen path, the release offered by a cheap 10-day courier trip to Hong Kong and so forth. He listened without interrupting. Then, “How’d you end up here?” Meaning, who do you know in this odd, off-the-beaten-path bar? My “Brittney, cute-meet, outside-the aerobics-studio” story emerged. The captain eyed me carefully, paused just a beat, then offered, “Well at 2 AM my freighter leaves Hong Kong Harbor for South America. If you’re as unhappy as you say you are, I’ll give you the dock number. Show up, board, and we’ll leave. You’ll be fed and housed. All you have to do is follow simple orders, work, and learn something about life on a freighter.” The captain starred across his table at me. “Well, what’ll it be? His steady gaze and one arched eyebrow made it clear that he was waiting for an answer. Wow! Escape! What would that look like? No more 100+ hour mind-numbing work weeks. No responsibilities to speak off. No frustrations. Just work a bit and live! Free! I came within a nanosecond of saying yes. In the end though, I stayed the course, the course my life was already on. Now, 30-some years later I still reflect on the “what if” offered by a chance encounter in a distant city with a beautiful stranger and her taciturn friend.