A funny thing happened to me on the way to a public meeting recently — I became invisible.

Being an invisible man can have its benefits, sort of like being the fly on the wall during a private meeting between Tiger and Secret Lady #9. Or, if you’re a cop doing stakeout duty, it’s nice to know you’re invisible to the stakees.

On the other hand, if you’re on the opposite side of the law you’d love being invisible while you’re shoplifting, robbing a bank or snatching priceless gems from the Museum of Modern Art. I wouldn’t recommend such activities, however, since the invisible cop will slap a pair of invisible cuffs on you and throw you into an invisible cell, where you’ll have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of other invisible thieves.

Spies love invisibility, as do moles and gophers. I only include the latter because I’ve lived on Gopher Woods Road for 18 years and have yet to espy one of the critters.

As a reporter, I admit, there are times when being invisible would seem preferable, were it not for the fact that surreptitious note taking could be considered tantamount to quoting off-the-record comments — sort of the equivalent of unauthorized wiretaps.

Really, what a reporter wants is to be visible in a wallflower kind of way. You want your present to be known but in a Secret Service agent, I’m-here-but-the-focus-is-on-the-Big-Guy sort of deal.

In other words, you want to report the news, not be the news.

In the aforementioned meeting, I felt that I was fulfilling my journalistic, stay-out-of-the-way-and-take-notes function. Then, out of the blue, it came to me that I was invisible. And then I reappeared and was left wishing I could drop into a hole.

Seems the board I was covering was having problems making a decision. Almost out of desperation, one of the members asked another reporter if the public could be enlisted in solving the problem.

Thereupon, a discussion from the panel ensued with the other newshound, who was only too happy to surmise that the publication in question could possibly do this or that, depending upon the approval of the editor of said publication.

It was at that precise moment that I realized I was invisible. I took a peek at the back of my hand and, sure enough, it was nowhere to be seen.

How did this happen? I wondered. Could it be something in the water? Did sitting under the HVAC outlet cause me to evaporate?

Whatever was the cause, it apparently dissipated because somebody on the board pointed at me and said, “There’s Larry.”

At that point I wished I could disappear into a bottomless pit. The other reporter was still chattering about “we could do this” or “we could do that” and I could only guess why nobody had been able to see me to ask for my input.

Just as I was considering the practicality of quietly walking out with my now-visible tail between my legs, the board member nearest me told me in a stage whisper, “Put it in your column.”

So that’s what I did.



Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, has been visible, virtually, since that day.