The Regular

This afternoon, I was sitting in a van, as the driver went to the drive-thru bank. The interaction with the teller went something like this:

Hey Josephine.

Hey Bee.

You want quarters.

Yes ma’am.

You need anything else?

We’re starting up the Christmas pageant rehearsals this week, so if you know anybody interested in helping out, spread the word. I think I heard Steve might want to do it this year.

Yeah, I heard that too. All right, I’ll keep my eyes peeled.

Then Bee got the quarters and we drove off. The scene felt like the beginning of a movie, something like Kindergarten Cop, in which they’re establishing how down-homey everything is, such that you can just go up to a drive-thru bank and talk about the Christmas Pageant.

From the back seat of the car, I loved witnessing this charming interaction, but if I lived here, I think I would drive to a bigger town where I would be an anonymous banker. I am terrified of being a regular. I don’t know how to perform it: the easy grin, the wave to everyone in the establishment, the small talk, the order, concluding the order, waving goodbye. In Berlin, I eat lunch in the same restaurant every Monday after my weekly therapy appointment and I’m always terrified of the waitress who inevitably greets me with enthusiasm and warmth. I would stop going but I like the furniture arrangement and the food too much. I also like familiarity, just not in interactions with known strangers. You’d think that after therapy I would not be bound by these petty, slight considerations, but I feel them even more acutely.

This phobia of mine is a marked contrast to my grandfather who, according to family legend, had a habit of getting out the phone book whenever he was spending the evening in a new town, look up his last name, and call everyone listed, to see if they had any relatives in common.