Sufian Zhemukhov - Blueberry Diplomacy

 

 

Last summer, my girlfriend, Margarita, and I were in North Carolina, and we stopped at a fruit stand. Suddenly, another customer, a blonde woman about my age, announced to nobody in particular, “I have blueberry bushes at home that need picking.” [audience laughter] 

 

Now, I'm an introvert with strict rules towards strangers. [audience laughter] Never talk to them, [audience laughter] never ever believe them [audience laughter] and never ever, no matter what, follow them. [audience laughter] Only before I knew it, my girlfriend, who is an extrovert with a completely opposite set of rules, [audience laughter] introduced us to her new best friend, Terry. [audience laughter] To my horror, we were following Terry's car to pick blueberries. [audience laughter]

 

Terry led us first on the highway, then a country road, then a dirt road. My confidence in our surviving this adventure [audience laughter] deteriorated with the road quality. [audience laughter] As Terry's car stopped at a lonely standing house, I heard loud dog barking. “Yay, you've got dogs,” my girlfriend exclaimed. “Can we pet them before we pick blueberries?” [audience laughter] 

 

But validating my introvert instincts, Terry said, “Those are our bear hunting dogs. [audience laughter] But don't worry. They are locked in cages.” [audience laughter] Okay, I thought she's a hunter and not a gatherer like us. [audience laughter] My girlfriend said, “I wonder if bears eat blueberries.” While I wondered if hunters eat gatherers. [audience laughter] 

 

Then, another big hunter and a little hunter came out of the house, and Terry introduced us to her husband, Scott, and her grandson, Kyle. And to Margarita's delight, Kyle, a seven years old boy, was carrying a cute puppy that also made me feel safe thinking they're not going to traumatize the puppy and get away with us in front of it. [audience laughter] Then, they took us to the blueberries in their front yard, and Scott, a fellow introvert and I started picking blueberries in awkward silence [audience laughter] while Margarita and Terry kept talking. 

 

Terry “Machine Gun” questions at us, “Where are you from? How do you like it here?” And Margarita fired back, “We love it here. I'm originally from Ukraine, and Sufian's from Russia and we live in D.C now.” And suddenly Terry stopped, and an ominous silence descended upon us, as it happens when extroverts stop talking. [audience laughter] 

 

Terry suspiciously asked, “Are you liberals?” [audience laughter] Oh, oh, I thought this can't be good. [audience laughter] And that's when Margarita said something that deserves #sheeradmiration. “Would you still let us pick blueberries if we were?” she said in her charming way. That broke the ice. Terry laughed, of course and instantly resumed her interrogation about everything, from President Biden's age to mine. [audience laughter] 

 

To dodge the politics, I told her mine. “We are the same age,” she said. “This is incredible we have so much in common. I've never had such a nice conversation with liberals before.” Scott took a selfie of all of us, including the puppy. Terry gave us goodbye bear hugs, and Margarita and I drove away back toward liberal democracy. [audience laughter] 

 

Margarita checked her phone and said, “Terry just sent me a friend request and she posted our picture. Listen to what she wrote.” And she read it to me, “Today, my faith in humanity was restored. Met these two. They're Democrats, we're Republicans, she's from Ukraine, he's from Russia. Two different sets of people communicated mutually. That's what the world needs today.” 

 

And I agree with Terry. She and Margarita changed my perspective. Now, I believe in talking to strangers, because they might surprise you if you keep an open mind. And I also believe in blueberry diplomacy that might change the world. [audience laughter]